Why Digital Composting in VFX is An Essential Part?

• Admin
• April 28, 2021
• Visual Effects

Digital composting is merely a technique to integrate or superimpose digital assets to bring the final shot of a movie or even any game. Compositing is the ending step, or you can call the icing of the cake in the VFX pipeline.

A skilled Digital Compositor has his/her techniques to put all the frames and layers together into various desired elements in a way that makes them appear to be appealing and naturally eye-catching to the audience, making it look seem that they belong in the same space.

A production company or firm initially shoots a background, commonly called a plate, containing a building or skyscraper up close with a proper background behind. The Animator has animated a missile or any creature, suppose a dinosaur, and the Effects Artist has added smoke effects and an explosion or the creature tearing apart everything is all being done with this composting method.

The Need for Digital Composting in VFX

Digital compositing is an essential part of visual effects and CGI. Today, they are everywhere in the entertainment and gaming industry—in short films, television commercials, marvel or DC movies that require a lot of CGI and VFX. It is growing enormously.

Nowadays, every movie has its touch of extra VFX to make it look sublime to the audience. It might be a love story or a comedy, or even a tragedy. However, there will always be something that needs to be added or removed in terms of graphical representation from the picture to tell the story.

That is merely a gist or a teaser of what visual effects are all about— adding elements to a picture that are non-existent but making it exist in the frame or removing something that you do not want to be there. Furthermore, digital compositing plays a vital role in all visual effects, becoming a backbone in the movie or gaming industry. This is how it makes its essence indispensable.

Insights on Digital Composting in Visual Effects

Whenever someone makes something related to the CGI element, someone else has that task to composite it and blend it as the perfect end product before filming. There are a lot of general where we can look where the CGI elements are composited. First up is short CGI compositing where a CGI object has been created as it is a requirement as per the script or storyline goes and needs to be implemented into the scene.

Next, we will look at the set extension on how far we can proceed with the object placed and make sure everything remains natural. This is a rapidly expanding technique in film making. Last we will look at the match move, where separate programs are used to analyze the live-action and provide terrain with the added flavour of VFX and camera movements requiring the skills of cinematography and working with various data for the CGI programs.

Today, the stronghold and the reach of digital composting in the field of CGI go far beyond jets, robots, and dinosaurs. Recent advances in technology have made it possible to create a vast range of incredibly unrealistic and fictional, synthetic objects for compositing, ultimately making it look all the more accurate in the audience’s eyes.

Beyond the obvious things which were always there in movies over the past decade, such as flying cars, spaceships, aeroplanes, and rampaging beasts battling against each other, creatures talking and interacting among themselves, CGI has mastered the ability to create photorealistic hair, skin, cloth, clouds, fog, fire, and even water and changes in weather conditions in a more refined way or into something more intimidating.

It has become common practice to use a digital double when you want the movie star to execute a daring stunt beyond even the expert stunt double, so you need that exact look-alike or make mirror-image movements the actor is doing. However, after all the spaceships, beasts, water, and fire have been rendered, somebody has to composite them all together with the help of this advancement of CGI and VFX. The kudos goes to that somebody who is the technical spearhead or rather the digital compositor.

The original photography captures the subject walking along an otherwise small and uninteresting area or background behind. The set extension element was an all-CGI city in the distance with any smoke or snow added to add meaning to the script and keep the storyline meaningful. The beauties of CGI generate all these, and the rest of added touchups are taken care of by the digital compositors. The resulting composite shows all of the elements composited together made natural and exquisite. All the colour corrections are done to blend everything in order and maintain the synchronization.

How to Become a Digital Compositor and What is Their Pay-scale?

To be in the field of digital composting, you could create and gather elements to build an out-of-this-world sci-fi scene or provide bizarre graphics in the latest games. One has to indulge themselves in a lot of projects to reach perfection in this field.

There is a lot of software where you can practice and enhance yourself in 3D graphics or digital painting in Adobe Photoshop to really learn visual effects and know-how light and shadow are portrayed in the digital space working with all the three axes and to know about the details about introducing a particular subject in the frame and how it can sync well with its landscape.

With years of experience, you can climb up the ladder pretty scale when it comes to the field of digital composting. One can earn up to more than 15lacs per annum if you are a renowned compositor. With more and more fantasy worlds, epic destruction and apocalypses are needed for film, games, and even virtual reality; they will always have their demand.

Breaking in Into the VFX Industry

Two main factors to be kept in mind are as follows:

• Strong Networking Chain : When you are involved in a certain discipline area attending conferences, workshops etc. are an important part of learning a bit more. Both in-person meet-ups and online meet-ups keep on happening. It is essential to build up contacts. Gaining new tips and meting new person who shares their experiences is a mandate. Practice is the key to success in this industry.
• A Strong Portfolio Built : You are your work. The representation matters more than you do. Clients and individuals will go through your work and it will do all the talking. Creating a portfolio with all your best works is a mandate again. The uniqueness should be seen everywhere. Focus on the perspective where the basis is built with color and light and how beautifully they blend on with other elements of the scene and give an extraordinary output.

A senior compositor earns more than $65,000 in a year, whereas a standard compositor with a descent years of working experience earns near about $60,000 in a year. The starting range of salary of a compositor is near about $28,000, which exceeds $110,000 in a year with increasing experience, working, and the geographical location of work. It is taken that in abroad, the pay-scale and scope are high. With the increasing demand for the fantasy world, destruction scenarios, and various effects for different games, movies’ need for capable compositors will remain, and the demand will increase.

As capable and expert VFX compositors are the need of an hour in the industry. One should equip themselves with all possible skills, and for that, the right institution should help you to guide through your dreams. Maya Academy of Advanced Cinematics or MAAC Girish Park has the right courses for you, which warm you up in the best way in the least amount of time. Enlist for the course today without any delay!