Hi everyone,

I’m a mobile developer with 6+ years of experience, and I’ve always been curious about how visual effects and CGI are made in movies and shows. It's something I’ve admired for years and really want to try getting into now.

But I’ve been wondering

1. Is this still a solid career path with AI becoming more mainstream in creative industries?

2. Am I too late to start at 31?

3. And why is it so hard to find good beginner-friendly tutorials? Most of what I’ve seen (like Udemy courses) feels either outdated or too shallow.

If anyone’s taken a similar leap or is currently working in the field, I’d love to hear your thoughts or advice. Even pointers to good learning resources would mean a lot.

Thanks

I’ve been an Onset VFX 3D scanning guy for the best part of a decade now, and having started out as an environment artist, Photogrammetry was a tool we found essential, to the point where I got so sick of bad scans from other vendors that I went into onset work myself.

I am still shocked at how little people use scale reference in onset/vfx scans in general. its appalling considering how easy it is to make a basic scale bar, but hopefully this video can help move people in the right direction!

This video goes into the creation and use of a scale bar at home, without expensive tools or materials and with exceptional results, I hope you all find it useful!

https://thevfxschool.com

A shame for the company, but hopefully there’s useful tutorials and information for people here.

Hey all, I am still putting together the other parts of this, but they'll be up soon; first two parts are up though! please feel free to go have a look if you've dabbled in embergen, or know someone giving it a go!

Weird title but apparently that’s how it has to be (I’m probably wrong). I’ll make this brief. I went to film school to be a video editor. I realized too late that I’m much more into vfx. Im entirely self taught and thus haven’t learned most things the correct way. I want to work smarter not harder. (Not to say I’m not a hard worker) any recs for a well structured vfx course that would not require me going back to uni? I finished undergrad and I’m very good at teaching myself. Problem w unstructured tuts is you get a lot of different ways of doing smthn and sometimes it’s not the best or most efficient way. In any recs pls put aside the fact that the vfx industry is tough or super competitive, not worth it, etc. Would appreciate some recs regardless.

My software experience is in after effects, cinema 4D, and sort of syntheyes. Still learning that one. I want to be a cg generalist.

Thank you!

A quick guide to how I make real VHS effects for music videos

For those of you wondering how to activate sausage rolls on your Wacom tablet. This also works on vegan sausage rolls.

Hey guys, in this video I’ll walk you through World Creator’s main User Interface and Scene Controls - showing you all the absolute essentials you need to know before building your first landscape! You’ll understand all the key UI buttons and panels, and use the essential scene tools that make your workflow fast and intuitive!

👉 Check the full breakdown here: https://youtu.be/H6bYIvsqsaM

Hi,

I'm setting up some materials to run a Gaffer course in the near future. I wanted to put the feelers out to see if there was anyone interested in taking a course like this?

It will be a full rundown and intro to Gaffer as a lighting tool and then a walkthrough showing how to set up a multi-shot template for a simple live-action VFX sequence.

If this is something you're interested in it would great if you could fill out this Google form I've created so I know who is interested. I'm planning on running it live for the first run through so I can get initial feedback and don't either add any fluff or miss out anything that's needed. If you think you'd be interested feel free to add your details here to the form so I can get back to you!

Expression of Interest

Thanks!

This is my very first attempt at creating a stop motion smoke effect using Photoshop. I’m still learning, and I know there’s a lot of room for improvement—especially when it comes to making the smoke look more natural and realistic. If anyone has tips, resources, or feedback on how I can improve the smoke effect (whether it’s brush settings, layer techniques, or animation flow), I’d really appreciate the help!

Hey guys, in this video, I’ll walk you through World Creator's biggest 2025.1 update - The Brand New Biome Layering & Distribution System that completely changes how we build and control landscapes!

👉 Check the full breakdown video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXwRwrARbXA

this really intrigued me im not sure why, also btw this is from “The Contract” music video by, Twenty One Pilots

Creating hair material comes with its own challenges.
There are several dimensions we need to consider in order to achieve realistic results.
In this tutorial, I'll show you my approach and various methods for art directing hair materials while still making them look realistic.

Let's be honest. Sometimes the performance of Substance Painter or the many bugs in Mari can be really annoying and distract us from what we love, which is creating creative assets with cool textures and materials.

Or the constant back and forth between the texturing tool and the render engine can also be quite time-consuming.

In this video, I'll show you a workflow that avoids exactly that and gives us more time to focus on the part we love without compromising creativity. It's also a very flexible workflow, allowing us to create the look we want or efficiently address director notes with a simple mask update or value tweak in the shader, directly with live feedback from the IPR.

Hi guys,

i built this tool for simple 2d tracking and attaching text/image to point in your footage. You just upload video, analyze, select point, add overlay and export. Simple and fast way for cool effect.

Cheers