Hi there,
I’m looking into training for shake, and heard the shake training from gnomon is pretty good. Is this good? And could it learn me, newbie to shake, how to composit a bit? And could you follow these tutorials with shake 2.5 cause at home i have windows and well i have shake 2.5 on it, but is it possible to do these dvd’s or do i miss a big part of the dvd’s?
Thanks in forward 
The dvds for shake are good but if you are just getting started you could just use the shae manual and tuts that come with shake. They are good starting point.
The shake dvds tuts work on 2.5 butI find some things are a little strange when sometimes.
All in all if you want to start to learn shake the dvds are good,also check out CMI Studios as they have shake training dvds are well.
I am running shake 2.5 for windows and shake 4 on linux.
SK
why did you buy a 4000 dollar compositing software, when you don´t know anything about compositing!?
teSeems like the discussion got distracted by childish comments, like most threads on cgtalk.com.
Here’s the scoop on the Shake bundle - they’re good if you are a total beginner, but not that great. But they are still better than the first 3 DVDs that CMI did (can’t comment on the DVDs they added lately). The Shake 101 DVD is worthless - the guy is just reading what’s displayed on the GUI and mostly making common sense statements. VFX Compositing Fundamentals covers the same ground a lot better, although some of the statements (esp related to the math portion) are fuzzy. Also, some of the advice - e.g. convert log images to lin, may make your life easier, but will cost you - in the case of log-lin you’ll lose a lot of the dynamic range by doing everything in lin. So in general the impression that I got is that while the instructors have a decent amount of experience with Shake, they are not masters who completely understand the math underneath the nodes. They probably learned on the job, but still have gaps because noone taught them the theory in detail.
My advice - read Steve Wright’s ‘Digital Compositing for Film and Video’ and try everything in Shake and you’ll be head and shoulders above 99% of the folks who use Shake. Use the Shake manual and Gnomon’s DVDs when you get stuck with Steve Wright’s book and to learn the interface.
Nov 12 Update - After watching the Matt Linder DVDs as well I’d have to say that they are pretty good. On a scale of 1-5 (5 being best), I’d give Matt’s DVD’s 4.5/5.0. Shake 101 is 1.5/5.0, VFX Compositing Fundamentals - 3.5/5.0.
I advise nobody to go for the gnomon dvds. They have a very poor resolution, you can damage your eyes AND your desire to open them as well. They are, from this point of vue , useless. I bought the maya tutorials and I gave a lot of money -2200 USD or so - for I wanted baddly to learn . I deeply regret it . I coulnd’t watch them . They are pure rubbish. I worte Gnomon team about this, telling them that the resolution didn’t match what I’ve been promised, nore the images displayed on the site, but it was , again , a simple waste of time.
I live in a poor country , I have no money to throw away, it’s a shame that this happened.
Maybe it’s just the USA, taking advantage of the poorest. SHAME.
yikse. they are some pretty drastic comments. If that is the case, then it is a shame that there isnt much decent training material for this supposed amazing compositor. Im still considering buying the dvds, to at least gain a quick understanding of the interface and how the application works. Ive only really worked in after effects for about 4 years and was wanting to make the transition. I wonder if the nuke compositing dvds explain any of the concepts any better and would be applicable to all compositing applications.
It certainly is alot of money as you say. The previews looked alright on their website. I guess it goes back to learning the hard, and only real way. Studying manuals, project experience etc. Itd be great to get a foot in the right direction tho.
Most tutorial videos these days are still at ntsc(720x486) in an mpeg2 file. All the newest gnomon ones are at 1024x768 in either a qt or avi file.
So unless you have a crappy warez down-rez version of them, I have no idea what you are talking about. The look just fine to me.
This is critical to compositing in general. This text is, pure and simple, the first thing you should read. The APple pro training book is pretty good too. At that point? experimentation.
:wip: (this looks like a hammer to me)
Anyway. It’s a lot of work. Just get some bluescreen elements from somewhere. Heck go shoot some. You’ll get a crappy inconsistent color, which you should get used to because it will teach you how to garbage matte. The worse off your source footage, the more you will learn.
Just don’t expect to have a reel ready in a month to get a job at a facility.
-J
This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.