Name: The art and science of digital compositing
ISBN: 9780080499321

The art and science of digital compositing

The classic reference, with over 25,000 copies in print, has been massively expanded and thoroughly updated to include state-of-the-art methods and 400+ all-new full color images! The Art and Science of Digital Compositing is the only complete overview of the technical and artistic nature of digital compositing. It covers a wide range of topics from basic image creation, representation and manipulation, to a look at the visual cues that are necessary to create a believable composite. Designed as an introduction to the field, as well as an authoritative technical reference, this book provides essential information for novices and professionals alike. 17 new case studies provide in-depth looks at the compositing work done on films such as Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Golden Compass, The Incredibles, King Kong, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Sin City, Spider-Man 2, Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and Star Wars: Episode 3 - Revenge of the Sith. This book includes new sections on 3D compositing, High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging, Rotoscoping, and much more! - Publisher.

What Hacker News says

turnsoutMay 2024

So awesome! I had a similar reaction to Shake—I first created an ANSI C command-line based compositor that read in and interpreted scripts. A year or so later I abandoned it in favor of a Mac app with a node-based GUI that compiled down to GPU instructions that I brought to market with a partner.

Also just want to highlight Ron's book The Art and Science of Digital Compositing, which is valuable to this day!

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mathnodeOct 2021

That’s disappointing to hear. At least The Art and Science of Digital Compositing, I find, is still a good read.

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philipkglassMay 2024

I bought The Art and Science of Digital Compositing at Powell's Technical Books in Portland a year before I started my capstone project. It and Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice 2nd Edition in C were my main references.

There was much less open source code to look at back then, and it wasn't as easily searchable either. Working on graphics, I could usually (though not always) resolve an ambiguous directive by trying different approaches and looking at the output. Does the result look like colored snow? Does the whole image now have a magenta tint? I probably need to try a different interpretation (or just fix my bug).

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