Compositing

What Is Compositing

Everything a compositor needs to know, and where to learn it

Compositing is the last step of a visual effects shot: the compositor takes everything that was made for it, the live-action plate, the CG renders, the FX, the matte paintings, the elements shot on set, and turns it into one believable image, as if a single camera had filmed it all. I've done this job for more than ten years, on films and series at Weta FX, DNEG, Framestore, MPC and other studios, and I mentor students who want to do it too. This page is the map I give them: what compositing is, everything a compositor needs to know, and where to learn it.


Index


01. What compositing is

Every frame of a VFX shot is built in layers: the plate shot on set, a character rendered in CG, smoke and fire from the FX department, a sky from a matte painter, a dust element shot on black. The compositor combines all of it, and then does the part nobody sees: makes the blacks match, adds the same grain, the same lens, the same light, the same defocus and motion blur, so the audience never doubts that it was all in front of the camera. When compositing is done well, nobody notices it.

The best explanation I know is this short film by Roy Peker: in three minutes it shows what VFX and digital compositing are, step by step.

VFX Games: The Art of Compositing, by Roy Peker (2017).

Fast X, DNEG: the plate shot on a set with blue screen
Plate
Fast X, DNEG: the final composite with the street of Rome
Final

A shot of mine from Fast X at DNEG: a set with a blue screen becomes a street in Rome. More plate/final pairs in my portfolio.


02. What a compositor does all day

In a studio, a compositor receives a shot with everything the other departments delivered, builds a Nuke script, and renders versions that are reviewed in dailies by the comp supervisor and the VFX supervisor. Notes come back ("the CG is too clean", "match the blacks", "more atmosphere in the background"), you address them, and you send a new version, until the shot is approved by the client. A normal shot goes through many versions.

So the job is technical and artistic at the same time, and it's also about people: reading notes correctly, asking the right questions to lighting or FX, keeping scripts clean so someone else can pick them up. Junior compositors usually start on roto, paint and prep, then simple comps; seniors get the hero shots and sequences; leads and supervisors look after the look of a whole show.


03. The roadmap: everything a compositor needs to know

These are the topics I'd want a compositor to know, in roughly the order I'd study them. Nobody masters all of them at once: start from the first four and come back to the rest as you grow.

Start here


04. Images, channels and premultiplication

Before any technique, understand what an image is for Nuke: numbers in channels, not "colours".

  • Channels and layers: RGBA, depth, motion vectors, the AOVs of a CG render in a multichannel EXR.
  • The alpha and premultiplication: why you unpremult before grading CG and premult again after.
  • Float, linear values above 1, bit depth, half float; why we work in EXR and not in JPG.
  • Merge operations (over, plus, screen, multiply) and what they really compute.
  • Filtering and concatenation: why stacking transforms can soften your image.
Alpha compositing: an element with its alpha, over a background.
Alpha compositing: an element with its alpha, over a background. Wereon, Wikimedia Commons, public domain
The Porter-Duff operations behind Merge: over, in, out, atop, plus.
The Porter-Duff operations behind Merge: over, in, out, atop, plus. Philiprbrenan, Wikimedia Commons, CC0
On this site:Merge & PremultiplicationFiltering & ResamplingConvolution MatrixFree test images

05. Colour, colour spaces, OCIO and ACES

The topic I see most confusion about, and the one that separates a junior from a senior. You don't need to be a colour scientist, but you need to know exactly what happens to your pixels from the camera to the screen.

  • Colour science basics: light, the eye, primaries, white point, gamut.
  • Scene-linear versus display-referred; log encodings (LogC, S-Log, Cineon) and why plates arrive in log.
  • Colour spaces and transforms: Rec.709, sRGB, ACEScg, ACES2065-1, the view transform.
  • OCIO and ACES in Nuke: configs, input and output transforms, working space, what the viewer shows you.
  • Grading for a match: Grade, ColorCorrect, saturation and hue, without breaking the linear maths.
The gamuts of sRGB and ACES on the CIE 1931 diagram: why ACEScg holds colours sRGB can't.
The gamuts of sRGB and ACES on the CIE 1931 diagram: why ACEScg holds colours sRGB can't. Myndex, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
The sRGB transfer curve: display values are not linear light.
The sRGB transfer curve: display values are not linear light. Dicklyon, Wikimedia Commons, public domain
On this site:Lin, Log & GammaThe Grade NodeColorCorrectSaturation, Hue & HSVColorMatrix8-bit images in ACES

My guide on OCIO and ACES


06. Light and photography

A compositor fixes light all day, so you have to know how light behaves in the real world. Take photos, lots of them, in manual mode: it's the cheapest compositing course there is.

  • Exposure: aperture, shutter, ISO, stops; what a stop of light means in linear values.
  • Hard and soft light, bounce, falloff, colour temperature, mixed light sources.
  • Shadows and contact shadows, atmosphere and haze, how contrast drops with distance.
  • Specular and diffuse, fresnel, how skin, metal and glass react to light.
  • The exposure triangle and the histogram: read a photo like a light meter.
  • White balance, dynamic range and how many stops a sensor can hold.
  • Shoot references on set: grey and chrome balls, HDRI brackets, a colour chart.
The exposure triangle: aperture, shutter speed and ISO, and what each one costs.
The exposure triangle: aperture, shutter speed and ISO, and what each one costs. WClarke and Samsara, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
The inverse square law: double the distance, a quarter of the light.
The inverse square law: double the distance, a quarter of the light. Borb, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
On this site:Matching Colour & LightQuick 2D Rim Light

Photographers and cinematographers to study


07. Camera and lenses

Half of making CG look real is making it look filmed. The camera leaves fingerprints on every frame, and your CG needs the same ones.

  • Sensor size, focal length, field of view and perspective.
  • Depth of field, focus distance, bokeh shape (spherical and anamorphic).
  • Lens distortion and how to undistort and redistort (STMaps, lens grids).
  • Chromatic aberration, vignetting, flares, veiling glare, halation.
  • Motion blur and shutter angle, rolling shutter, grain and noise.
Aperture and depth of field.
Aperture and depth of field. BenFrantzDale, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Chromatic aberration: each wavelength focuses at a different distance.
Chromatic aberration: each wavelength focuses at a different distance. Bob Mellish, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Barrel and pincushion distortion.
Barrel and pincushion distortion. Wikimedia Commons, CC0
On this site:Lens Distortion: STMap InvertVector BlurConvolve & Deconvolution

Lens and camera artefacts, one by one

Every one of these is something a real camera does, and something your CG doesn't do unless you add it. Learn to recognise them in plates and references.

Depth of field and bokeh
What's in focus depends on aperture, focal length and distance; out-of-focus highlights take the shape of the aperture.
Cat's-eye bokeh
Towards the edges of the frame the bokeh gets cut by the lens barrel into cat's-eye shapes.
Lens distortion
Barrel or pincushion: undistort to track and comp, redistort at the end.
Chromatic aberration
Colour fringes towards the edges (lateral) or around highlights (longitudinal).
Vignetting
Light falls off towards the corners of the frame.
Flares and ghosts
Internal reflections of bright sources: streaks, rings and ghosts mirrored across the centre.
Veiling glare
Stray light lifts the blacks and lowers the contrast around bright sources.
Diffusion and bloom
Filters like Pro-Mist and older coatings spread the highlights into a soft glow.
Halation
On film, light bounces back through the emulsion: a red-orange glow around bright edges.
Lens breathing
The framing changes slightly when the focus changes.
Focus pulls
The plane of focus moves during the shot, and CG has to follow it.
Field curvature and astigmatism
The edges of the frame don't focus on the same plane as the centre.
Anamorphic
A squeezed image: oval bokeh, horizontal streaks, its own distortion.
Motion blur and shutter
The shutter angle sets how long each frame is exposed: 180° is half the frame.
Rolling shutter
CMOS sensors read the lines over time: verticals lean in fast pans.
Grain and noise
Film grain changes per channel and exposure; digital noise is strongest in shadows and blue.
Gate weave
On film, the frame moves slightly in the gate.
Compression and sharpening
Edge enhancement and macroblocks in some plates: match them or work around them.

08. Cinematography and the eye

Technique gets a shot to work; the eye gets it to look right. Study films the way a cinematographer does, collect references for everything, and learn to describe what you see.

  • Composition, framing and where the eye goes in a frame.
  • How cinematographers light a scene, and why a shot "feels" a certain way.
  • Real references: look at a real explosion, a real sky, real skin before you build one.
  • Taste: knowing when to stop, and when a "cool" effect breaks the realism.

09. Tracking and matchmove

Almost every shot is tracked. Choosing the right kind of tracking is half the work: a 2D track where a 3D one is needed slides; a 3D solve where a corner pin would do wastes a day.

  • 2D tracking: one, two and four points; what translate, rotate and scale come from.
  • Planar tracking (Mocha, Nuke's planar tracker) and corner pins.
  • 3D camera tracking: solve, lens, point clouds, scene scale.
  • Stabilise, work, matchmove back: the classic paint and screen replacement workflow.

2D, planar and 3D tracking

  • 2D point tracking

    Follows one or more small patterns in screen space. One point gives position; two give rotation and scale; four give a corner pin. Use it to stabilise, to stick an element on a point, to remove a marker.

    Nuke Tracker · Mocha · Silhouette
  • Planar tracking

    Follows a whole flat surface instead of points, so it survives occlusions and parts leaving frame. It solves a perspective transform: perfect for screens, signs, walls, and to drive roto shapes.

    Mocha Pro · Nuke's planar tracker in Roto · Resolve
  • 3D camera and object tracking

    Matchmove: solves the real camera (position, rotation, focal length, lens distortion) from many tracked points, so CG and projections share the plate's parallax. Object tracking solves a moving object instead of the camera.

    Nuke CameraTracker · PFTrack · 3DEqualizer · SynthEyes · KeenTools
NukeMocha ProPFTrack3DEqualizerSilhouetteBoujou
Planar tracking solves a projective transform (a homography) between frames.
Planar tracking solves a projective transform (a homography) between frames. Alexei Kopylov, Wikimedia Commons, public domain
3D tracking solves the camera: position, rotation and focal length of a pinhole model.
3D tracking solves the camera: position, rotation and focal length of a pinhole model. Olaf Peters, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
My NAVY helicopter project: the tracked camera and the CG in the 3D scene.
My NAVY helicopter project: the tracked camera and the CG in the 3D scene.
On this site:CornerPin & HomographyTrigonometry: two point trackingTransform MatrixMocha Pro3D Matrices

Go deeper on tracking


10. Roto, paint and prep

Where most compositors start, and work that never stops being useful. Good roto is about edges and motion, not about the number of points.

  • Roto: shape breakdown, motion blur, feather, hair and soft edges.
  • Paint: clone and reveal, clean plates, wire and rig removal, markers.
  • Smart vectors and STMaps to propagate paint through a shot.
  • Prep: degrain, regrain, and giving back to the plate exactly what you took.
Roto: the plate, the spline shapes around the player and the final white matte.
Roto: many small shapes, one per part that moves on its own, and the clean matte they make together.
Paint and cleanup: the Statue of Liberty removed from the plate, the pedestal rebuilt.
Paint and cleanup: the statue is gone, and the water, city and pedestal behind it are rebuilt.
On this site:Edge Extend & Hole FillingMorphologySTMap

AI and machine learning roto

AI is changing roto faster than any other task: the matte still needs a compositor's eye on edges and motion blur, but the first pass is getting automatic.


11. Keying and despill

  • How the keyers work: Keylight, IBK, Primatte, chroma and luma keys.
  • Core matte and edge matte; keying hair and motion blur.
  • Despill algorithms and how to restore the colour of the new background.
  • Edge extend, light wrap, and integrating the edge into the new plate.
Green screen plate with hair
The plate: hair on green.
The IBK key of the hair
The key: every strand in the alpha.
Despilled comp over a new background
Despill and the new background.
On this site:The Math of KeyingThe Math of DespillEdge ExtendEdge Detection

12. CG integration

Most shots today have CG in them: the compositor rebuilds the render from its passes and makes it sit in the plate.

  • AOVs: diffuse, specular, emission, SSS; rebuilding the beauty and balancing it.
  • Light groups, utility passes (position, normals, depth, motion), cryptomatte.
  • Deep compositing and holdouts.
  • Matching: black levels, saturation of shadows, highlights, atmosphere, defocus, grain.
My NAVY helicopter CH-46: a CG model integrated in a photographed plate.
My NAVY helicopter CH-46: a CG model integrated in a photographed plate.
The CG render up close: textures, lighting and the plate's light.
The CG render up close: textures, lighting and the plate's light.
The model under the render.
The model under the render.
On this site:Matching Colour & LightUVRenderRim LightFree CG render to practise

Deep compositing

A normal image has one value per pixel; a deep image keeps a list of samples per pixel, each with its depth. So you can merge CG elements, volumes and holdouts in depth without rendering holdout mattes for every combination, and change the animation of one element without re-rendering the others. It was born at Weta for Avatar and became part of OpenEXR 2.0. The price is disk space and memory.

  • DeepRead, DeepMerge, DeepHoldout, DeepToImage: the basic deep nodes.
  • Holdouts in depth instead of rendered mattes; deep for volumes, fog and particles.
  • When deep is worth it, and when a flat comp is simpler and faster.

Go deeper on deep


13. 3D in Nuke, USD and Gaussian splats

  • Cameras, cards, geometry and the ScanlineRender.
  • Camera projection for set extensions and 2.5D moves.
  • Point clouds, position passes and relighting in comp.
Pompei, camera projection project
Pompei: a camera projection from a photo.
UVRender projection from camera
UVRender: projections from the camera.
3D Object collection for Nuke
My 3D Object collection.
On this site:3D Matrices3D Object CollectionPompei: camera projection

The classic 3D system and the new USD one

Nuke now has two 3D systems. The classic one (Card, Camera, ReadGeo, ScanlineRender) is what most compositors learned on. Since Nuke 14 Foundry has built a new 3D system on USD, out of beta with Nuke 17: what flows through the node graph is a USD stage with a hierarchy of prims, not a flat list of objects, so big scenes from layout and lighting come in without conversion and stay fast. The two systems don't connect to each other (in the node graph, the classic 3D nodes are green and the USD ones are red/orange), the new render node is ScanlineRender2, and Foundry plans to retire the classic system once the new one does everything. Projections work differently in USD: learn both, because you'll find both in production scripts for years.

  • A USD stage, prims and paths: how a scene is organised, and how to select a part of it.
  • Projections, cards and cameras in the new system, and how they differ from the classic nodes.
  • Gaussian splats: import, view, mask with Field nodes, render with SplatRender (with depth and deep), merge with your plate.

USD in Nuke

Gaussian splats

2.5D compositing and camera projection

Between a flat comp and a full 3D render there is 2.5D: images projected onto simple geometry or placed on cards in 3D space, seen through the tracked camera. It gives real parallax to matte paintings, set extensions and clean plates, at a fraction of the cost of CG.

  • Cards in 3D space at the right depth, from a tracked camera.
  • Camera projection: project the plate or a painting from a frame's camera onto geometry.
  • Stretching and occlusion: where projections break, and how to patch them.

Go deeper on 2.5D


14. Particles and FX elements

Dust, snow, sparks, debris, rain, embers: a lot of what makes a shot feel alive is small FX that a compositor adds directly, with Nuke's particles or with stock elements.

  • Nuke's particle system (NukeX): ParticleEmitter, forces like gravity, wind and turbulence, ParticleMerge.
  • Emit from geometry or a point cloud, render through the shot camera so particles share the parallax.
  • Stock elements (fire, smoke, sparks shot on black) and how to integrate them: screen vs plus, depth, light.
  • When it's time to ask FX, or to learn Houdini.
On this site:Particles Collection3D Object Collection

Go deeper on particles


15. Grain and noise

Grain is the note I've seen most often in dailies. Every element you add (CG, a paint patch, a clean plate, a projection) must have the same grain as the plate, or it reads as fake even if everything else is perfect.

  • Degrain the plate before keying and paint, then put the original grain back at the end.
  • Match grain per channel: blue is usually the noisiest; size and intensity change with exposure.
  • Regrain everything you add: CG, paint, clean plates, retimes, scaled or blurred areas.
  • Check grain at 100% and in motion, not on a still frame.

Tools and guides


16. The maths of compositing: colour correction, grading, keying, filters

You don't need to love maths, but a little goes a long way: once you know what a node computes, you stop guessing and start fixing.

  • What merges, grades and keyers do to the numbers.
  • Matrices for transforms and colour, convolutions for filters.
  • Vectors and trigonometry for trackers, expressions for animation.
  • The Grade node as a formula: lift, gain, multiply, offset, gamma; ColorCorrect's shadows, midtones and highlights ranges.
  • Saturation and hue: luma weights, HSV, why Rec.709 and average give different results.
  • Lin, log and gamma: why you grade and blur in linear.
  • Keying and despill as maths: colour difference, IBK, spill maps.
Hue wheel
Hue, saturation and value.
N dot L relight
A dot product that relights.
Trigonometry in Nuke
Trigonometry for trackers.
On this site:Math in Nuke seriesMatrices in Nuke seriesVectorsExpressions & CurvesExpression NodeAnimation & CurvesTimeOffsetClock

Colour correction and grading

Keying, mattes and edges

Filters and resampling

Geometry, vectors and expressions


17. Scripting: Python, TCL and BlinkScript

Not every compositor writes code, but the ones who do save hours every week, and studios notice. Start with TCL in knobs and labels, then Python for your own tools; BlinkScript when you need a custom image operation.

  • TCL in knobs, labels and expressions: values from other nodes, conditions, strings.
  • Python for automation: menus, callbacks, batch changes, your own panels in PySide.
  • Gizmos and groups: package your setups so the team can use them.
  • BlinkScript for custom image processing on the GPU; the NDK (C++) for real plugins.
PythonTCLPySide / QtBlinkScriptC++ / NDK
On this site:Python & TCL tipsTCL for NukeLabel & AutolabelCustom Panel in QtPyColor PanelPySide2 in Nuke 16+BlinkScript MatricesSpeedy ScriptMy gizmosHTML with NukeNuke 10 vs 11Expression Node

TCL

Python

BlinkScript and C++

Toolsets to study and use


18. Machine learning, AI and ComfyUI

Machine learning is already in production pipelines: CopyCat for roto and clean-up, depth and normals from a plate, relighting, upscaling, retiming. It doesn't replace the eye, but a compositor who knows these tools is faster, and studios now ask for it. Learn what each tool is good at, and where it breaks.

  • CopyCat: train a network on a few frames of your own shot (a matte, a clean-up, a beauty fix) and let it do the rest; the Inference node runs it.
  • The Cattery: free pre-trained models for Nuke (segmentation, depth, optical flow, upscaling, denoising, style transfer), ready to load in the Inference node.
  • ComfyUI: node-based diffusion and video models; bridges send plates from Nuke to ComfyUI and bring back mattes, depth, normals and generated elements.
  • What ML is good at today: roto and mattes, depth and normals, paint and inpainting, upscaling, retiming, denoising.
  • The limits: flicker between frames, resolution and bit depth (8-bit vs EXR), colour space, and the licence of models and training data on a client show.

Machine learning inside Nuke

ComfyUI and Nuke

Models compositors use

Tools

Learn and think about it


19. Must-have Nuke tools

The free tools you'll find installed in almost every studio. Learn them, and read how they're built.

The toolkit

The most popular tools on Nukepedia


20. Shortcuts, habits and a clean script

The difference between a junior and a senior script is visible from the first look at the node graph. Good habits make you faster, and they make your shots easy to take over.

  • Read from top to bottom: plate at the top, one main pipe, branches to the side; backdrops and labels for every block.
  • Name your nodes, use dots for clean lines, Stamps or hidden inputs for long connections.
  • Performance: keep the bounding box tight (Crop, the BBox knob on Merge), avoid stacked transforms that break concatenation, and switch off what you don't need with Disable or a Switch.
  • Proxy and caching: work in proxy mode or at a lower viewer resolution while you block in; precomp heavy branches (a Write and Read back, or DiskCache), cache the viewer, and localise plates from the network.
  • Learn the shortcuts: Tab, the hotbox, viewer keys (gain, gamma, channels), Alt+I for script info.
  • Version up, never overwrite; keep your nodes and gizmos in a personal toolset.
On this site:Label & AutolabelSpeedy ScriptColor Panel

Read more


21. Tech check and QC

Before a shot goes to the supervisor, and before it goes to the client, it gets checked. Do your own tech check first: it's much cheaper to find a problem yourself than in a client review.

  • Difference with the plate: a Merge (difference) between comp and plate shows anything you changed by mistake.
  • Viewer checks: gain up and down, gamma up and down, saturation off, each channel, the alpha.
  • Edges: no fringes or halos, the same softness and motion blur as the plate.
  • Values: blacks and whites match the plate; no negative values, NaN or inf pixels.
  • Grain on everything you added, matching per channel.
  • Delivery: frame range with handles, format and resolution, overscan, lens distortion re-applied, output colour space, file naming and version.
  • Versions: latest CG, FX and matchmove; retimes from editorial; previous notes all addressed.
  • Watch it at full speed, and in context with the shots before and after.

Monitor and viewer: see the shot right

A tech check is only as good as the screen you look at. If your monitor is wrong, every grade you make is wrong.

  • Calibrate the monitor with a probe (DisplayCAL is free) to the standard of the show: Rec.709 or sRGB at gamma 2.2/2.4, P3 for cinema; recheck it every few weeks.
  • Room: dim, neutral light; no window behind or in front of the screen; neutral grey desktop.
  • Viewer process: the right OCIO display and view for the show, the same the client sees. Never grade through the wrong LUT.
  • Gamma up and down (or gain): blacks and highlights reveal edges, banding and lifted values that are invisible at normal exposure.
  • Saturation off: the luminance alone shows if an element sits in the plate; colour can hide a wrong value.
  • Per channel: R, G, B and alpha one at a time (R, G, B, A keys); grain, edges and spill show up channel by channel.
  • Wipe and A/B against the plate, and a second monitor or a client-like screen for the final look.

Specs and best practices


22. The final grade (DI) before the cinema

When VFX are finished, the film goes to the DI: the colourist, with the cinematographer and the director, grades every shot for the cinema, then for HDR and SDR streaming. Your comp has to survive that grade: if an edge or a black level only works at the neutral grade, the colourist will find it.

  • VFX deliver EXRs in the agreed colour space (often ACES), with no grade baked in.
  • The look travels as CDL or LUT: check your comp under the show grade, and push it further to stress edges and blacks.
  • Deliverables: a DCP for the cinema, HDR (Dolby Vision) and SDR masters for streaming.
  • Learn a grading tool: DaVinci Resolve is free and the standard.

Read more


23. Glossary

The words you'll hear in your first weeks in a studio, in one line each.

Plate
The footage shot on set that you comp on.
Alpha
The channel that says where an image is opaque.
Premultiplied
Colour already multiplied by alpha: unpremult before grading.
AOV
A render pass: diffuse, specular, depth, normals...
Cryptomatte
ID mattes from a CG render, picked by object or material.
Deep
Images with many samples per pixel, each with its depth.
Bounding box
The area of an image Nuke actually computes.
Concatenation
Nuke merging consecutive transforms into one filter.
Roto
Animated shapes that cut out an element.
Prep / paint
Cleaning a plate: rigs, markers, wires.
Clean plate
The plate without the element you need to remove.
Despill
Removing the screen colour that spills onto the subject.
Degrain / regrain
Removing grain to work, adding it back at the end.
Matchmove
Recovering the real camera of a shot.
STMap
An image that stores where each pixel comes from: distortion, warps.
Overscan
Extra pixels outside the frame, for distortion and moves.
Handles
Extra frames before and after the cut.
LUT
A lookup table that converts colours.
IDT
Input transform: from the camera's colour space into the working space (ACES).
ODT
Output transform: from the working space to a display, for example Rec.709, sRGB or P3.
Viewer LUT
The display transform in the Nuke viewer: what you see, not what you render.
CDL
Slope, offset, power and saturation: the colour look of a shot.
OCIO
OpenColorIO, the colour management of Nuke and most VFX tools.
ACES
The Academy colour system used on most films and series.
Scene-linear
Values proportional to real light.
Dailies
The daily review of work in progress.
Tech check
The technical QC of a shot before it's sent.

24. Learning paths: where to start

Not everything at once. This is the order I'd suggest, depending on where you are.

  • Beginner: the first 3 months

    Images and premultiplication, colour basics, light and photography, 2D tracking, roto and keying. Comp simple shots on free plates.

    Images · Colour · Light · Keying · Free plates
  • Junior: the first job

    CG integration, lens artefacts, grain, a clean script, tech check, how a studio works, a reel that gets you hired.

    CG · Lenses · Grain · Habits · QC · Getting hired
  • Mid: towards senior

    Deep, 2.5D and USD, the maths behind the nodes, colour management, scripting your own tools, ML, and the final grade.

    3D & USD · Maths · Scripting · ML · DI

25. Books: my compositor's bookshelf

A lot of what I know about compositing I learned from books about photography, light and cinematography, not only from books about Nuke. This is the shelf next to my desk; below, the books I'd recommend, grouped by topic (the links search them on Amazon).

Andrea Geremia's bookshelf: books on light, colour and cinematography
Part of my shelf: light, colour and cinematography.

Compositing

Colour and image science

Light, colour and painting

Cinematography, camera and lenses

Photographers and great cinematographers

The industry

More suggestions in the VFX compositing students' reading list by Escape Studios.


26. Who to follow on YouTube

The channels I'm subscribed to and recommend to my students.

Learn Nuke and compositing

Studios, breakdowns and the eye

After Effects and general VFX

AI and ComfyUI


27. Free material to practise on

You learn compositing by compositing. These are the places I send my students for plates, renders and tools, all free (always check each licence).

Plates, renders and test images

Lighting, tools and models


28. News, communities and forums

Read how the shots you admire were made, and ask questions where compositors answer.

Blogs by compositors


29. Courses, schools and podcasts

When you want a structured path with feedback, these are the courses and schools compositors talk about (most are paid; Foundry Learn is free).


30. Working in a studio

Knowing Nuke is half the job; the other half is working inside a pipeline with dozens of other artists. What changes from school to studio:

  • Naming and versioning: shot names, script versions, render paths. Never overwrite, always version up.
  • Dailies and notes: show your work every day, read the notes carefully, ask when a note isn't clear.
  • Production tracking: tasks, bids and statuses in ShotGrid (Flow) or ftrack.
  • Review tools, render farms and keeping scripts clean so that someone else can take over your shot.

Tools you'll meet in a studio


31. Getting hired

When you're ready, this is where compositing jobs are, and how to present yourself. Start from my guide on the portfolio.

Your portfolio

Jobs, studios and salaries


32. Learn with me: 1:1 lessons

Every section of this page can become a lesson. These are the topics students and studios ask me most often, in English or Italian:

  • Nuke from zero to the first comp.
  • Keying, roto and paint at production level.
  • CG integration: AOVs, light groups, deep.
  • Colour management: OCIO and ACES in practice.
  • Camera and lens realism: defocus, grain, lens artefacts.
  • Python and TCL for your own tools.
  • Reel and portfolio review, shot by shot.

Book a 1:1 lesson

Next: How to build a VFX portfolio · Nuke tutorials · Mentorship

Want to go deeper, one to one?

Any of these topics can become a lesson: colour and ACES, keying, CG integration, lenses, Python for Nuke, or your own shots. 1:1 sessions in English or Italian.

Book a 1:1 lesson About my mentorship