To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Flame, we're bringing in a variety of Flame (and Smoke) artists to share projects and knowledge which they find particularly interesting. So much has changed in the software over the last several years, sometimes the best way to see what you've missed is by watching others work. The course will feature five different artists over the duration of the term. Profs include Randy McEntee (The Mill, NYC), Brian Mulligan (WTHR-TV, Indianapolis), Victor Wolansky, and others.

If youпїЅre a CG artist who has always been curious about Houdini, or if you are just wanting to brush up on your core skills and learn new techniques for working in Houdini 12, this is the class for you. Taught by John Moncrief, this course we will cover the fundamentals of working with Houdini. You will first learn the basic concepts and work-flow of Houdini, then work through the different contexts of the software in more detail by creating specific effects and solving real world production problems.

Mark Bowey returns with a broadcast design course that looks at the psychology, styles and graphical expressions of the Sports Promo. In this course we will look across the board at the layers that comprise this broadcast stalwart, as well as create our own teasers and major promo, using hi-res studio sports footage specially shot with the Weisscam HS-2.

Note: this course is taught on PFTrack 5. Victor Wolansky's tracking courses have been perennial favorites at fxphd. In his new advanced course, heпїЅll be covering many high level issues which come up during production. For instance, heпїЅll take a look at dealing with lens distortion - a big problem which is sometimes overlooked. Bad tracks can often be attributed to a bad lens distortion correction and heпїЅll show you how to avoid these pitfalls.

In this advanced PFTrack course, the focus is on complex shots, long shots, and those shots that make you lose your sleep. fxphd favorite Victor Wolansky will also be focusing on the critical details and skills that can take your tracking ability to the next level and really stand out in your job.

fxphd grew out of the fxguide website, which was originally formed as an online community for flame artists. So it should be no surprise that we'll be the first with a new course covering the 2012 release in both smoke and flame. This is arguably the biggest release in years for flame and smoke, with a great number of creative and workflow improvements. Check out the new feature overview videos at fxguide.com -- it's over two hours of material. Our slate of profs has been involved in the beta program for the release, so they're ready to hit the ground running.

In this advanced technical look at grading and managing EPIC footage, we will aim to both build upon our earlier EPIC production courses and our color science understanding. This course presents a range of detailed options for EPIC workflow. It will present some simple workflows but also aim to cover more complex issues leading into grading. All EPIC footage is shot to be graded, and while we will cover some effects work, our primary aim will be to present a way to get great graded footage from the EPIC and make sure that what you are shooting produces the best possible footage.

Taught by Christos Obretenov, this course covers the use of the software in production. Artists and Technical Directors will find this course useful for expanding their shading knowledge in Renderman, as well as learning some of the newer advanced ray tracing, physically-based shading, and image-based lighting techniques being used in production today. Coming out of the course the student will be able to put into practice, in a production environment, the procedural shading techniques we cover and understand their use more thoroughly, as well as design a shading/lighting pipeline around the physically-based shading and lighting paradigm.

Take your Smoke knowledge and put it to a creative use. Now that you have tried the Smoke demo or have taken the Introduction to Smoke on Mac course here at fxphd, now is the time to really see what you can do with all of Smoke's tools.

DSLR video is a growing if not exploding area of cinematography. In our second DSLR course we contrast the urban intensity of our Japan course with the majestic intensity of the landscape of Yellowstone national park. Without a doubt the best person we could think of to teach this course is Captain Tyler Ginter of the 55th Combat Camera Company. Tyler is well known for his work in helping the Army's camera company move to DSLRs and has worked in some of the most rugged and unforgiving environments on Earth. No one is better suited to discuss what you should take into the field to shoot away from the protected environment of the studio than Tyler.

We have done some great courses in recent times on using the new range of DSLR cameras in a variety of situations, but this term we want to focus on scripted based narrative drama and comedy. We have teamed up with legendary UK Writer and Director Doug Naylor (Red Dwarf co-creator) to produce an episodic comedy called "Over to Bill". Mike Seymour will be working closely with Director of Photography Ed Moore, to bring practical on-set tips to light. The entirely new and original story is filmed in and around London in the present day and captures the best of scripted DSLR approaches.

This term Tom Gleeson returns and is joined by Mike Seymour for a camera production course that focuses on the technical side of film making. Each week the team will pick an area and discuss the technical issues associated and along the way show the newest cameras on the market. Rather than look at a different camera each week, the team will cover the technical topic and use several cameras to illustrate the key points.

This intermediate (pushing advanced) level course discusses fluid effects in Houdini. Profs Jonathan Gilbert and John Moncrief will help members of the course become familiar with HoudiniпїЅs Dynamics Operators (DOPs) and the different fluid types: SPH, Voxel-Based and FLIP fluids. With this knowledge you will endeavor in a production oriented project to integrate a cg water fountain into a live action background plate. We will explore HoudiniпїЅs Rigid Body Dynamics (RBD) for collision detection, FLIP fluids for the bulk of the water effects, DOPs Forces for wind, foam and spray using some built in shelf tools (whitecaps) and lastly, lighting, shading, rendering and compositing the final image.

DSLR video is a growing if not exploding area of cinematography. In our second DSLR course we contrast the urban intensity of our Japan course with the majestic intensity of the landscape of Yellowstone national park. Without a doubt the best person we could think of to teach this course is Captain Tyler Ginter of the 55th Combat Camera Company. Tyler is well known for his work in helping the Army's camera company move to DSLRs and has worked in some of the most rugged and unforgiving environments on Earth. No one is better suited to discuss what you should take into the field to shoot away from the protected environment of the studio than Tyler.

In this advanced technical look at grading and managing EPIC footage, we will aim to both build upon our earlier EPIC production courses and our color science understanding. This course presents a range of detailed options for EPIC workflow. It will present some simple workflows but also aim to cover more complex issues leading into grading. All EPIC footage is shot to be graded, and while we will cover some effects work, our primary aim will be to present a way to get great graded footage from the EPIC and make sure that what you are shooting produces the best possible footage.