Dentonvanzan DR.

I just finished this course and I wanted to write a short review about it. I think the content and style is top-notch, super focused. Each video was on point, cleanly edited, no dilly dallying or watering it down with fluff talk that just bloats the course length..

I also liked the general style that starts with introduction, followed by breakdown and concepts, and finally the implementation. As I progressed through the course I could see the amount of attention to detail that went into creating this kind of material.

As for the content: I rate myself intermediate level so the initial chapters about point clouds were well covered and easy to understand. When it started to cover convolution kernels, interpolations, blurring and sharpening, it started to challenge me a bit, but still not far from my comfort levels.

The later topics about gradient computation, gradient ascent/descent, contour lines, etc were quite new to me and very open-ended, so I enjoyed these the most.

By the time I reached the adaptive subdivision, subdivision limit surface and fully VEX-based Catmull-Clark subdivision, I could feel the full intensity of the lessons. It was pretty advanced for me as there were serious hardcore optimization methods that I still need to get my head around. I will have to re-watch some of these videos to understand them fully, but they were still relatively easy to follow. I didn't need a programming background or anything, which I have none! Everything was broken down into logical chucks instead of a single 3 hour video that explains everything.

I was going through it a few videos at a time. That’s why it took me so long to finish it mostly over the weekends and some weekdays after work.. It turned out a lot more useful this way too. I was able to quickly put what I learnt into practice at work, instead of waiting for a specific shot a tutorial covers, to be assigned to me for FX.

It’s definitely not just for highly technical people. Maybe the promo video might give that impression from the mathy-techy lingo. I find the topics very practical as an FX artist. I think the author himself is also an FX TD.

This course is definitely a unique truly advanced VEX course covering so many topics, some of which I didn't even know existed before even as ideas.

I think this kind of effort should be supported so we can see more of these professional courses from production artists working at high-profile studios, rather than the same old repetitive training materials produced by training companies year after year with little to no practical value just to turn some profit..

Wow, this is really useful. thanks for sharing your knowledge

Good job! 8)