Future plans

Hello patrons,

First of all, I hope you all are doing well in these confusing times all around the world, COVID-19 is causing a massive impact in our industry and our lives, so I hope you are dealing with it as best as possible.

I just want to give you a quick update on what I'm planning to do on my Patreon in the near future. Right now we have two long-format series, Katana Fastrack and Introduction to Redshift.

Katana Fastrack is nearly finished. You can expect one or tops two episodes left. I still need to show you things like graphic state variables, how to create macros, sequence lighting, scattering systems, the new material editor and a little intro into 3Delight. Again, one or two videos left and we are done.

Introduction to Redshift. You already know the basics so I don't want to keep adding introductory videos to these series. I will be doing a little project to tell you everything that I want about Redshift, including how to deal with ACES, how to ingest external assets like SpeedTree or Megascans. I will go through Redshift proxies, scattering systems in Houdini, atmospheric creation and rendering, Houdini heightfields, and a few more things to create a nice little project and conclude these series. I'm not sure how long it would take to finish "Introduction to Redshift" but no more than two or three videos.

What happens after this? Well, I want to do another four long-format series of amazing content, including the following.

Camera projection masterclass. I want to show you in detail how to deal with camera projections in visual effects. As you know the "traditional matte painter" doesn't exist anymore. Matte paintings and environments these days are full CG or a combination of CG and 2.5D I will focus on everything 2.5D related in Nuke and Maya for these series, covering different techniques, different types of shots, and everything that you need to become a matte painter/environment artist.

Compositing Fastrack. Yes, I will introduce a long-format compositing series, I will try to cover everything that I know about compositing, including keying, tracking, rotoscoping, prep, lens distortion, color correction, CG compositing, live action compositing, rules of compositing, etc. I'm not a compositor myself but I feel comfortable enough creating my slap comps that I think I can teach you the basics of Nuke compositing to an intermediate-advanced level.

Real-time rendering. Another new topic for this Patreon. I've been exposed to real-time rendering and Unreal quite a bit and it is time for me to share what I know. In these series, I will be focusing primarily on the rendering side of real-time. I will touch briefly other aspects of Unreal, like the level editor, blueprints, VR, etc. but again, it will be focused on real-time rendering, thinking of all the possibilities that this technology offers for visual effects and virtual production.

Houdini FX boot camp for non-FX people. Yeah, it sounds weird, doesn't it? I'm not an FX TD, but I've been doing a lot of small FX (and creature FX) related tasks, from creating clouds, atmospherics, cloth simulations, grooming, scattering systems, fractures, rigid bodies, a little bit of water, etc. These series are targeted for 3D artists that are not FX TD's, like myself. If you are a lighter or an asset artists, these series will teach you how to approach common FX tasks that you can do on your own instead of relaying on someone else.

Apart from all of the above, some random content will drop once in a while as usual.
I just bought a pretty cool workstation, powerful enough to help me creating all of this stuff. I'm still waiting for it but once I have it, I will do a post about it.

Please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions, speak up! And please, share this Patreon if you think it's worth it.

Thanks again for your support,
Xuan.