Hey people,
After the COVID-19 lockdown ends, I’m planning to work on software courses. They’ll probably go up on YouTube. Right now, I’m writing the course for Blender basics. I also have another planned for using Blender for VFX and compositing.
There are already a lot of Blender courses and tutorials so my plan is to do something different with the teaching method. However, there is no “proper” course or tutorial series for Natron while there are literally many for other similar software like Nuke, Fusion, Smoke, etc. A good percentage of Natron users have previous experience in other software so they can hop in and figure most stuff out by themselves but people who are new to the world of compositing can be overwhelmed. They can watch and learn from Nuke tutorials and courses but to be fair, Natron isn’t exactly like Nuke and has it’s own strengths and weaknesses.
So I’m thinking about making an “official” or “proper” detailed training course for Natron after I’m done with the Blender basics and Blender VFX thing. I can’t promise anything like how long it will take because I’m going through some weird stuff right now.
The thing is, I don’t know every single nook and cranny of Natron like I know Blender (I’ve been using Blender for about 9 years and Natron for only about 4), so I’ll need someone to help me on topics I can’t wrap my head around. Any and all help is welcomed when I come around to it.
I’m posting here to know what your thoughts are about this and so I can share my progress on the pre production and production of the course when I start with it.
If anyone wants to collaborate with me for this, that’s welcomed too.
Willing to help recording tutorials (all my shows are cancelled, so there is time)!
Keep in mind that there are quite a few beginner tutorials on Youtube, missing tutorials about masking, how to use the various merge functions, create glow, create a countdown, text effects, import .svg, animate logo, follow a path, how to do specific stuff (e.g. resizing and cropping a video) etc.
If you can create some kind of list, I am happy to help pushing Natron with tutorials.
He has a good beginner series:
I’m thinking about creating a start to finish Natron 101 course. Start at the interface, then basic tools and nodes, then creating a simple composition using two images, then advanced compositing (masking, cleanup, chroma removal, noise reduction, etc).
I know that there are tutorials for Natron but they’re not organized. What I mean is, one channel doesn’t cover it all. They are scrambled across YouTube and people sometimes have to search for a new video to continue. I’m planning to make one playlist for Natron and cover as much as I can from installing Natron to rendering out an advanced composition.
I haven’t started planning any of this because right now I’m working on the Blender courses, but I’ll take a look at some Nuke and Fusion courses to see how they are structured and create a rough outline of the course. I’ll post it here so everyone can know how I’m planning to do it and if anything’s wrong, missing or to be done differently, it can be changed.
Looking forward to seeing your take on it! My “Indie Rebel” YouTube channel started as a course that did the same thing - walking people through from start to finish. A one-stop shop for learning Natron. Good luck!
An idea I had recently was to do a series about every node in Natron. One video per node. That way someone could just search for the node they don’t understand and there would be a 3-5 minute video talking about just that node and what it does. I still think it would be cool, I just don’t have the time to do all the videos for that, so feel free to take the idea 
Good idea! Even shorter than that would be cool. We would certainly put the link to the video in the node’s official doc.
And we need text doc too! For now, we only have a few link to Martin Constable’s Nuke courses (eg Merge - RMIT Visual Effects), but his website is very slow.
That’s a good idea. But I was thinking about how the nodes work in harmony to create a composition instead of only focusing on working with individual nodes and what they do. Of course, I will explain some of the nodes but not all of them. The objective of my course will be to get people started with creating compositions in Natron as quickly and easily as possible.
You should make the node videos. I’ve seen your work and its really great. If you make the videos on the individual nodes, I can just direct my viewers to your playlist if they want an in-depth explanation of all nodes.
Well Sean beat me to it xD
Those videos are actually from 2017 and he just uploaded them to Youtube recently. Intro to Compositing in Natron | OpenVisual FX
Wouldn’t hurt to do another course using a more recent version of Natron
Hmmmmmm good point.
I’ll take some time to watch Sean’s videos and see what I can do differently and/or better.
I’m currently working on a comprehensive Blender course so it’s gonna take quite a lot of time to start recording the Natron course. I’m living with my parents and grandparents right now and there’s a lot of chaos in the house so I’ll probably need to rent some place to setup a recording studio.
@El_Artista did you create the 101 Natron tutorial series? If you did, then please share the link or share a link of some good YT channel for a newbie like me.
Thank you
Folks, I am planning finally to start it as well. The thing is most of the footage I get are NDA so can’t really use them for tutorials.
If anyone wants to contribute vfx footage for tutorial purpose that would be great! Only CC I got was Tears of steel. But that doesn’t cover every vfx technique and not challenging actually.
So here is my basic vfx ops, please include yours as well:
- Keying
- Sky replacement
- 2D tracking
- Stabilization
- Cornerpin
- Roto
- Day to night
- Wire remove
- Color match
- set extention
With Blender
- 3D tracking
- Projection painting
- 3D integration
And what else?
Haven’t been able to allocate time due to unpredictable schedules so no I have not yet started on this. I’m doing my best to manage the Discord and help Hank and Songtech with some things.
Tears of Steel dailies are very rudimentary. We can use them for some things but not everything. Unfortunately most professionals would only have NDA footage so it will be kinda difficult to acquire suitable CC0 footage… I could have shot some new footage but, believe it or not, I lost my set of chroma cloth last month while on a trip 
… Im planning on getting a new set soon but no solid word on that yet.
Also I think we should include @tmorley, @El_Director and William Young in this discussion. William and Thomas are already making good content on YouTube.
An idea I had recently was to do a series about every node in Natron. One video per node. That way someone could just search for the node they don’t understand and there would be a 3-5 minute video talking about just that node and what it does.
I think this is a good idea. Split the diff tried to do the same for Nuke. I pesonally wish there are more ressources for Natron on Youtube and Odysee. Something like the old videos by Videocopilot where a specific shot was made in 20-40 minutes would be interesting as well. Or recreating something from a film that was just released.
maybe you can also check for footage on https://artgrid.io/. Maybe they also offer affilate programs.
I have started populating tutorials with this tag:
https://discuss.pixls.us/tag/natron-tutorial
What I am seeing there are many tutorials scattered across the forum. Might be a good idea if forum mods can gather them.
Nice idea, I’ll post there too when I stumble on a good tutorial. I suggest we add the level of the tutorial in the title.