What to expect from Notch Training (Part 1)
Notch is a visual tool for real-time creativity. It enables creatives to make real-time, interactive, live content for a range of digital canvases.
Not a month goes by without Notch running an in-person training session somewhere in the world. For many content artists, designers and technicians, the two-day intensive course is their first venture into the world of Notch and real-time rendering.
The training spans topics from those for complete beginners all the way up to self-taught veterans. Whatever your capability, course leaders Armin Kazlauskas and Ryan Barth are on hand to offer advice, bad jokes and perhaps even a pint at the end of a hard day of learning.
Dan Shutt, Sophie Marschner and James Pykett were among those who attended Notch training in London this May — we caught up after class to find out what they thought.
Dan Shutt is a VFX artist, VJ and co-founder of Wearemidnight. Dan has over 23 years of experience in the Visual Effects industry working as an artist as well as an instructor.
Sophie Marschner is a Designer at Potion Pictures. She specialises in motion graphics and VFX for TV, film, music and live events.
James Pykett is a Motion Designer and Creative Director at First Black Frame. He creates live stage visuals for clients in both London and LA.
What is your experience with Notch: have you dabbled or are you a complete beginner?
Sophie: I have been using Notch for the last month or two, pretty much as a complete beginner. I have completed the training course online and have started doing tests to see how I can incorporate it into my workflow.
Dan: I have been using Notch for some months now and I now aspire to be able to deliver fully generative real-time sets whilst still hanging on to the level of quality I’ve been accustomed to working with pre-rendered content.
James: I haven’t used Notch commercially yet, but I’m looking to introduce it into my creative pipeline.
What did you expect to learn at training?
Sophie: I expected to get a better understanding and grasp of building things inside Notch, the incorporation of C4D projects, along with more in-depth learning about exporting for media servers.
James: I mostly expected an overview of the capabilities.
Dan: My main aim was to fill in gaps in my knowledge, things that I may have overlooked while finding my own path with the software and also, to be that annoying student in every class with a list of off-topic questions to help me understand better technical issues I had come across (I really did have a pre-prepared list of questions, that I’m happy to say I had fully answered by the end of the training).
What did you ACTUALLY learn at training?
Dan: Mainly, I got to cross all those questions off my list! I found the information on modifiers definitely the most useful.
Sophie: A lot of what we learnt was digging deeper into the stuff we learnt on the Notch academy, plus knowing how to export notch blocks and use them with media servers. Also taking video and other external sources like BlackTrax in and learning how to create content for AR.
James: We also learnt how to build a project from scratch using various FX setups which I found very useful.
What’s one invaluable tip or technique you learned. Why?
Sophie: Ticking the deferred rendering box in the root definitely has to be up there! I found the techniques for using depth cameras really interesting and generally the things that allow you to make reactive visuals through video inputs, sound, MIDI etc.
Dan: For me, it was probably how to correctly drive FBX animation data with triggers. I had been struggling with that one for a few weeks now and I’m going to put that knowledge to use tonight as it goes.
James: I think the way that the cloners/emitters/fields work seamlessly with each other is a really powerful way to quickly build complicated setups.
Was there anything that surprised you?
Dan: I was surprised by how many familiar faces I saw of the Notch team, having followed their tutorials and webcasts online.
Sophie: Render times and how quick everything is!
What advice would you give to someone thinking of coming to Notch training?
Dan: For the uninitiated, the course covers a lot in the two days and you would definitely benefit from watching the tutorials on the Notch academy page first to give yourself a head start.
Sophie: Yes, definitely go through the Notch Academy video series beforehand, everything moves at a pretty fast pace so having some prior knowledge and muscle memory will help massively!
Notch runs in-person training on a regular basis, see our upcoming training dates here: https://www.notch.one/learn/training-overview/
