22nd June �09 �Worksss
VFX Live Action workshop announced! But last one for the year!
VFX Live Action workshop is being run one last time this year, after a huge success the last two times selling out almost instantly - a 3rd run has just been announced this week and has already filled up half of the spots. So if you're interested in participating in this highly successful workshop book now!
Click here to Enroll!
This will be the last run of this workshop this year, aftewhich there will be a new fluids and water based workshop running later this year (more information to come on this). The current workshop focusses on live action FX and compositing for film.
Fume FX Advanced DVD
Turbosquid will be releasing a DVD-ROM of the Fume FX Advanced DVD in the coming weeks - up until now it has only been available as direct download, however many people have requested a physical version they can purchase and have mailed out to them, so this will be coming very soon!
Click here to read more
CG Overdrive - Singapore
CG Overdrive event in Singapore was a huge success thanks everyone for coming along and it was great to meet everyone who attended. Singapore's a great city I had a blast and cant wait to go back and try some more of all the awesome food there!Update
29th March �09 �Worksss
Update
Cheers guys the DVD is selling exceptionally well and appears to be a huge hit! Even some artists from ILM and some of the other big studios have purchased Fume FX: Advanced! There are a lot of people enquiring about the physical DVD released from Turbosquid, it will be out in a little over a month, currently TS is scrambling to get everything ready for Max 2010's launch (I believe Autodesk has hinted that I have developed some super cool FX goodies for 3D Studio Max 2010 - so keep a look out for more information on that!) So after that the DVD will be out - in the meantime you can grab the entire DVD as direct download from my products website apparently some customers have managed to download the entire thing in under 2 hours! So the bandwidth is very fast.
As mentioned I will have a new website with loads of new free content coming online late May, so keep an eye out for that. I will also be speaking at FMX in Stuttgart if anyone is attending.
CG Workshops VFX Live Action Integration workshop SOLD OUT!
Just a heads up that the latest workshop I am running sold out almost instantly, so apologies for people who didnt make it this time. It's been a huge success and easily my best workshop yet, loaded with lots on compositing and building FX for real production shots, so this has been amazing to see what all of the students have been able to accomplish during and after the workshop! I wont be running it again until end of the year, the next workshop coming up will be a brand new one announced in the coming months - something which is going to be very cool and not just Max specific.
19th March �09 �Worksss
Fume FX: Advanced DVD - its out!
Thanks to everyone for the emails and enquiries - I have been hauling ass on this disc to make it the very best resource for Fume FX, with FumeFX: Essentials being the little brother of this DVD, more focussing on the basics, this one is jam packed with 24 hours of FX content, loads of techniques and other features. There is a brief list of the content on its web page below, I will probably update it with more information soon after I free up some spare time, but in the mean time, check it out!
Fume FX: Advanced is now released
18th March �09 �Worksss
Fume FX: Advanced DVD - to be released in the next 48 hours
The sequel to the hugely successful Fume FX: Essentials, this DVD is 8 x as big, twice the resolution. This DVD focuses purely on advanced content and industry techniques, ranging from initial pre-conceptual planning, and building scripts to automate tasks, through to rendering passes and building complicated composites of all of your fluids work in actual shots. Fume FX: Essentials has made its way into nearly every major production studio as a solid training resource for most FX artists, and I have received a lot of enquiries from some of the biggest Maya and Houdini Studios in Hollywood about utilizing Fume FX in their pipelines.
The DVD contains nearly 24 hours of content, and is by far the best (both quality and training content) DVD I've ever put together! I have had lots of enquiries about this DVD, as well as previously a lot about costs of shipping internationally, so this DVD will later be available through Turbosquid for purchase as a physical DVD, but als available here as direct download, so not only can you get it faster, but also for for less.
Should be available in the next few days - any urgent enquires contact me here
Live Action Workshop huge success!
The new Live Action workshop on CG Workshop has been a huge sucess, selling out within the first couple of days of its announcement, thanks to everyone who participated - you guys did some amazing work throughut the workshop!! Just announced, the workshop is running one more time due to the massive enquiries after the class sold out, spaces are going fast, at the time of writing this there are 5 spots left so get in there fast! Click here for more information
Worksss
Misc
This website will be moving to a new server very very soon, some of the current video tutorials that appear to not work will be put back online, as well as LOTS of new training content for all platforms, and lots of focus on scripting and rendering too. So there is lots happening this year!
Currently working on the new 2012 movie, after which if time permits I'll be off to work on Transformers 2 - I have also just finished up work on a lot of the cinematics for the new game Prototype from publisher Activision, which should be out later this year. Keep an eye out for Day Breakers which finally hits theatres in September, with 2012 following shortly after.
Upcoming Events
Busy year, I will be speaking at the following events
May 6th - FMX- Stuttgart, Germany
May 29th-30th - End User Event 2009 - Netherlands
June 1st-12th - CREANIMAX - Denmark
June 16th - CG Overdrive - Singapore
July 30th - Allan McKay Workshop - France
August - SIGGRAPH - USA
16th December �08 �Worksss
Brand new Live Action FX workshop
I have a new workshop running early in the year, all of the material is 100% new and exclusive to CG Workshop. So none of this will be on any DVD's or other media. The workshop covers fluids, shaders, scripting, dynamics, compositing and a lot of production methods and approaches to shots, pre production planning and everything I can think of to put in there. The workshop is pretty intense, and I think ties in well with the other two. However takes it to a new level, simulating what you would do in a day to day job in a real production environment. We basically blow up a bunch of cities in a bunch of different ways, and make it photo real! Click here for more information
I will mention I've opted for locked off cameras in the workshop rather than moving cameras, which I'm sure isnt a big deal. But I didnt want to make a workshop about camera tracking because to me its the most tedious and annoy process that I think a boujou manual can explain everything you need to know about it (at least from the tracking part, not the preparation of markers).
The long awaited Fume FX DVD 2
I also have a long awaited Fume FX DVD 2 coming out first quarter of next year. I've spent a lot of time on this to make it the absolute core material for any fluids user. I've tried to keep it cross platform enough that the information can be carried over to Maya Fluids and other packages as much as possible. It will cover a lot of high end work on shaders, Krakatoa, fluids scripting, building scripts for managing fume FX, triggering caches for FFX for particle events, heavy amounts of optimization methods, compositing fluids for live action shots, you name it. So once this disc is done I can get back to having a life again! But I've basically treated Fume FX DVD 1 as an intro to fluids, for people to new to it or wanting to learn Fume FX. But I really want this to be for all hardcore users who use Fume FX and Fluids day to day in movie production. I'll have more info in January about this. I am looking at maybe doing a direct download to save on shipping costs.
Free stuff when I have time to breathe..
I also will have a lot of new free content next year, I just need to spend xmas making my website a bit more friendly for content. This year has been killer and I havent really been able to put much out there but I would really like to keep giving as much as I can in the ways of tutorials, scripts and assets. So its all in the works.
3December Event - New York City
The 3December event in New York City was a succes, it essentially was a repeat of the master class I performed at SIGGRAPH in earlier in the year with some extra new fluids stuff thrown into the mix. Thanks everyone for attending!
24th April �08 �Worksss
Few new things
I've put up two new videos, with lots more to come. First one is a video just covering some of Afterburns new features, and the other is a quick maxscript tutorial covering how to read and write to text files, read directories and just get a bit more advanced with maxscript!
Afterburn 4.0 video
Maxscript Tutorial #3
On a side note - I am moving to Vancouver next month so I'll be situated over there permanently now which at least means I can frequent LA and other places on the top of the world rather being stuck down in Aus!
16th March �08 �Worksss
My whereabouts
I am currently in New York, I will be back in Australia for 4 weeks in April, which afterwards I will be based out of Vancouver. I will also be teaching my SIGGRAPH masterclass on fire which you can sign up for on Autodesks website.
I will also be planning to release plenty more training material very soon so keep an eye out over the coming weeks!
14th March �08 �
Visual Effects for Film Workshop - SOLD OUT!
Just a heads up on the Visual Effects for Film Workshop on April 7 sold out on the 3rd day after its announcement. For all of the many enquiries I got about the course, I will see if we can run it again in the future, so please email me at amckay@allanmckay.com and I wll add you to the list so you all know when the next class is likely to happen!
Thanks guys and my apologies for all of the people who eniquired about attending this course and didnt get in this time!T
10th March �08 �Worksss
Visual Effects for Film Workshop - enrolling now!
We are running another Visual Effects for Film Workshop on April 7 at CGSociety. The course is an 8 week advanced course aimed to cover production content at a high level, approaching it in an easy to follow direction. The course includes the following and more.
The classes fill up extremely quickly (every single one has sold out) so get in quick!
-
- Introduction to advanced particle set ups and workflows
- creating explosions
- procedural events and complex particle set ups
- creating a large tornado
- creature effects
- crowd simulations
- creating a vampire ashing effect
- and plenty of other topics.
3rd March �08 �
Fume FX: Essentials - Training DVD released!!
First of all, thank you for everyone who has purchased my latest fume FX disc, its become an instant hit! The DVD primarily focusses on Fluid simulations for film, introducing fire, smoke, explosions and all other concepts that are tied to fume fx. We cover working and handling fluids and understanding the complex process. Working with particles, compositing fire and making the most of the entire fluids process! Definitely one for people who want to raise the bar on effects, essentially aimed at advanced users, but designed thoroughly enough for most users to be able to keep up.
I have just returned from Vancouver where I did an intense 3 day training course with a lot of Frantic Films senior staff, training them on particles, fluids and visual effects and various other advanced content for film using pflow/thinking particles, fume fx, shaders and maxscript. Which days before that I was in Tokyo and Osaka holding a pirvate masterclass for a lot of the local game and film studios there! Thank you everyone for attending, it was a huge crowd and it was great to meet everyone!! - I am currently in New York for the next month overseeing the fx for a game cinematic with Tronic.
Finally I will be speaking at CG Overdrive 2008 in June in Singapore - Asia's largest annual animation festival, and later in the year at Creanimax, and lastly holding a HUGE masterclass again this year for SIGGRAPH in Los Angeles - this will be covering in great detail a lot of my more recent film work - as well as focussing on advanced techniques for production on fire, smoke, explosions and everything fire. So if youever wanted to blow something up this masterclass will be the one for you!
Lots of new announcements to come - but in the meantime I have released a bunch of new scripts and tutorials for max. Primarily focussing on maxscript, fume fx and afterburn. There will be plenty more to come, these ones are more introductory stuff however I will be covering plenty of high quality tutorials in the coming weeks.
ut_FFX2_Explosion1
Very simple tutorial just to jump start people into fume fx land.
http://www.allanmckay.com/tut/tut_FFX2_Explosion1.avi
tut_FFX3_FuelMasks1
More on the basics, emitting fuel from masks.
http://www.allanmckay.com/tut/tut_FFX3_FuelMasks1.avi
tut_FFX4_PFAB
Using pflow on a per-event level with fume fx.
http://www.allanmckay.com/tut/tut_FFX4_PFAB.avi
tut_maxscript1
max script intro 1
http://www.allanmckay.com/tut/tut_maxscript1.avi
tut_maxscript2
max script intro 1
http://www.allanmckay.com/tut/tut_maxscript2.avi
tut_maxscript3
max script intro 1
http://www.allanmckay.com/tut/tut_maxscript3.avi
they will require the techsmith codec (http://www.techsmith.com).s
I have also put together some of my more recent scritps I've written, currently they are presented 'as is' - I will later release all of these in a more presentable format with videos and intructions etc to make all of this easier. However currently I'm couped up in my hotel room in new york and havent got all of my resoruces with me. So there will be more to come! For a more detailed description of these scripts you can look at my CG Talk post for further reference.
http://www.allanmckay.com/scripts/amckay_scripts_01.rar
And lastly I will be moving back to North America this year so good times ahead! I will be speaking at SIGGRAPH and various other events I will announce soon.
Lastly there is an interview with myself in the latest digital media world magazine - you can read the article here if you do not have your latest issue! haha
So lots more to come - more tuts, cleaner site, more scripts, and properly presented. lots of other stuff!
31th January �08 �
Fume FX: Essentials - Training DVD released!!
ell. Click on the image below to see more information about the product!
26th January �08 �
Hi everyone and happy new year - I'm currently in Tokyo for my digital pyrotechnics class with Autodesk, next stop Osaka! One of these days I'll update this website so its a bit neater.. but for the time being here are a few updates.
SIGGRAPH 2008 - I will be holding a class on digital fire, this class will be I'm hoping my best content yet. Case studies on recent films, covering in depth lots of fluid simulations and fire, and really showing the balls of digital fire creation, explosions and everything I know on fluids and fire.
Fume FX DVD
Quick update, the DVD was meant to be released in December through Turbosquid, its been finished for some time - and to be honest I'm not entirely sure why its not out yet... but I will be finding out whats going on ASAP!!
New Fume FX Tutorial
This year I will be trying to find time to release more free training material, however finding time is the hard part! However I have put up a new video tutorial on fume fx. Nothing too complicated, but just a quick introduction to the interface. I will record more material in the coming weeks. You can find the tutorial located HERE. You will need the techsmith codec to play the video, and I believe its mp3 encoded audio.
