Top 11 VFX Tutorials of 2023
December 28, 2022
David Lugo
Here's a list of 11 great tutorials for VFX artists that will help you improve your skills in 2023!
Updated: August 2, 2023
If you're looking for ways to improve your VFX skills, our YouTube channel is a great place to start. We have lots of VFX of tutorials on everything from removing backgrounds from stock footage to advanced VFX compositing.
If you're looking for ways to improve your VFX skills, our YouTube channel is a great place to start. We have lots of VFX of tutorials on everything from removing backgrounds from stock footage to advanced VFX compositing.
In this roundup, we're giving you our top 11 tutorials from 2023 that you won't want to miss! Set some time aside for yourself and join the thousands of others who have learned valuable tips and techniques from our tutorials!
1. How to Composite Rain | Nuke Tutorial
This Nuke tutorial focuses on:
- How to composite rain elements in Nuke.
- How to best combine different rain and water elements.
- How to add rain bouncing and dripping from the umbrella.
- How to add color to the rain.
In this tutorial, we showed you how to create a rain environment in The Foundry's Nuke. This includes the combination of a few different assets from our different Rain VFX collections and how to best mesh them together to not only achieve a realistic result but one that adds to the story of the scene.
2. How To Add Explosion VFX Into Your Shot! | After Effects Tutorial
This After Effects tutorial covers:
- How to composite our Large Scale Gas Explosions assets easily by just dragging and dropping them into the composition.
- Using color correction to match the original plate.
- How to create quick smoke trails using the elements from the Large Scale Gas Explosions collection.
- Using the EXR version of the file to do more detailed adjustments such as creating a light wrap or improving the lighting of the explosion.
In this tutorial, we'll show you how to create a realistic large-scale explosion using our Large Scale Gas Explosions collection. By focusing on the details, you can add a sense of realism to your composition that will really make it pop.
3. How To Use PowerMesh In Mocha Pro | Beginner-Friendly After Effects Tutorial
This After Effects tutorial covers:
- What is PowerMesh and how do you use it?
- Pro tips on how to set up your PowerMesh.
- How to organize your workflow for adding textures or elements to a skin surface.
- How to speed up your workflow using the Insert Module.
In this tutorial, we take a deep dive into how to use the powerful Mocha Pro plugin to improve your workflow with motion tracking. We'll show you how to track surfaces like skin and clothes using the PowerMesh feature, and we'll also share some tips on how to plan your project so that you can get the most out of this powerful tool.
4. Introduction To Manual 3D Camera Tracking | Nuke Tutorial
This Nuke tutorial covers:
- How to import tracking data from the 2D Tracker node to the CameraTracker node.
- How to create tracker points to generate a working 3D camera solve.
- How to reduce the number of errors for your camera solve.
Nuke's 3D tracking can be daunting at first, but with this tutorial, we'll explore manual 3D point tracking in-depth, and share some tips that can help streamline your workflow!
5. Introduction To Rotoscoping In Nuke
This Nuke tutorial covers:
- How the Roto node works.
- An overall look at a basic rotoscoping workflow.
- What the rotoscoping workflow looks like in Nuke.
- Extra tips and tricks that are available to Nuke users.
When rotoscoping, having an efficient workflow is key to success. A good workflow will help you stay on track, avoid common mistakes, and work steadily until the project is complete.
In today’s intro tutorial, we will explain the basic workflow we use when rotoscoping in The Foundry’s Nuke. While Nuke is our featured program for this tutorial, this workflow can be applied to other compositing software.
6. How To Create A Fire Breathing Effect | After Effects Tutorial
This AE tutorial will cover:
- How to composite our Flamethrowers elements.
- How to create a realistic glowing fire effect.
- How to create interesting glow eyes FX.
- How to create an animated subsurface to create a skin glow effect.
- How to adjust the timing of the flamethrower elements to best fit the shot.
- How to add a heat distortion effect to the surrounding air.
In Iron Man 3, one of the most memorable twists is the reveal of Aldrich Killian as a member of The Extremists. In this tutorial, we will recreate the fire breath effect from the movie using our Flamethrowers elements.
7. How To Remove Backgrounds Without A Green Screen! | After Effects Tutorial
This AE tutorial will cover:
- The basic workflow of a green screen and why people prefer to use it.
- How to use Luminance keying if you don’t have access to a green or blue screen.
- How to use rotoscoping when lighting options are limited.
Learn how to remove your video background without using a green or blue screen in just 7 minutes with 2 easy methods! Whether you're working on a video project and don't have the time, money, or ability to set up a green screen, these 2 methods will give you the best results for your existing shot.
8. How To Create Morbius Smoke Trail Effect | After Effects Tutorial
This AE tutorial will cover:
- How to use corner pin data from Mocha as trackers.
- How to combine multiple ActionVFX elements to create the smoke trail.
- How to apply the plate's color texture to the smoke trail.
- How to add a displacement effect.
For the Marvel Studios movie Morbius, there were several VFX-focused tutorials we could have come up with, but we decided to focus on the smoke trail effect; or echolocation effect that emanates from the good doctor’s body. This is a quick and easy tutorial that will show you how to create this effect using After Effects.
9. How To Do Motion Tracking With Mocha AE | Beginner-Friendly After Effects Tutorial
This After Effects tutorial will cover:
- What is planar tracking?
- How to use Mocha AE for planar tracking and masking.
- How to use Track Linking and Insert Clip to improve your tracking and masking.
- How to export the tracking and masking data to be used in After Effects.
- How to deal with an occluding object.
Motion tracking can be a helpful tool for post-production, but if done wrong, it can result in a time-consuming loop of keyframing and shaky objects that are ultimately useless. In this introductory tutorial, we show you how to correctly do motion tracking using Mocha AE, the free plugin from BorisFX in Adobe After Effects.
10. Advanced Green Screen Keying Techniques | After Effects Tutorial
This advanced tutorial will cover:
- How to denoise your plate using the Reduce Noise plugin.
- How to create core and edge keys.
- How to best use masking and other keying methods to get a more accurate result.
- How to use Color Balance FX to key out fine details like hair.
- How to best deal with motion blur.
As a visual effects artist, you know that green screen keying is a must-have technique. In this After Effects tutorial, we'll take a look at some advanced keying techniques to help you get the most out of your green screen footage.
We'll cover everything from dealing with motion blur and hair details to creating the perfect matte for your shots. So if you want to take your greenscreen workflow to the next level, then this is the tutorial for you!
11. How To Create Glowing Eyes Effect | After Effects Tutorial
This AE tutorial will cover:
- How to track linking in Mocha.
- How to use our Icon: Anamorphic Lens Flare Collection to create the best eye glow.
- How to best add our Cigarette Smoke elements to the eyes.
- How to create your ignition points to the Cigarette Smoke elements.
Want to know how to make those iconic, movie-quality glowing eyes? In this After Effects tutorial, we'll show you how to create the popular visual effect using some of our assets, like our Cigarette Smoke and Icon: Anamorphic Lens Flare collections. So let's get started!
We hope you enjoyed this curated list of some of our tutorials! We've got plenty more where those came from, covering software such as After Effects, Nuke, Fusion, and more.
Never heard of ActionVFX? Simply put, we make VFX artists' lives easier by providing the world's largest library of production-quality VFX assets. Explore our asset library or join AVFX+ today.
Never heard of ActionVFX? Simply put, we make VFX artists' lives easier by providing the world's largest library of production-quality VFX assets. Explore our asset library or join AVFX+ today.
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