The Bounty Hunter
The Bounty Hunter is a sequence of ten shots, of which seven were entirely worked within Nuke. The project was developed as the final exercise of Aitor Echeveste's 'Professional Compositing Techniques' course, with the intention of reproducing a real cinematic workflow, facing authentic production problems and developing the ability to take a shot from scratch to a solid and professional finish.
My Role
In this project, I handled all the compositing, color treatment, environment lookdev, character and CG element integration, 3D projections, matte painting creation, and some atmospheric effects within Nuke. Although different programs were used in production, my entire process was executed within this software.
The main challenge
The project's goal was to learn to composite at the level of a real production, solving technical challenges, making conscious creative decisions, and strengthening my visual analysis capabilities. This work was also a personal challenge: I wanted to prove to myself that, with dedication and consistency, I was capable of tackling complex shots without depending solely on inspiration or 'talent' as my only tool. It has been a long journey full of learning, and at the same time one of the experiences that has made me grow the most as an artist.
Without references there is no direction
One of the most important lessons came when facing color without adequate references. At first, I tried to work guided only by the professor's final result, but the tones didn't reach the balance I was looking for. After researching color theory, consulting technical documentation, and studying real references, especially snowy shots from The Revenant, I understood that references are not optional help, but the foundation of any visual decision with intention. From that point on, corrections began to make sense and results improved clearly.
DMP + 3D Projection
One of the most important tasks of the project was the creation of the DMP. I prepared the matte painting from scratch in Photoshop using Photobash material and then projected it onto different geometries within Nuke to adapt it to each shot, ensuring physical depth and spatial coherence. The original CG environment did not include snow, so I performed a complete lookdev adjusting masks, cryptomattes, keyers, and tonal values to build a cold, dense atmosphere related to the narrative.
FX within Nuke
For atmospheric snow, I worked within Nuke using the P_snow_rain node, which allowed me to simulate different snowfall behaviors by varying turbulences, speeds, and wind direction according to each shot, maintaining visual continuity in the sequence.
Shot Breakdown
In the first shot, Shot 01, I projected the matte painting onto a card and built a second closer zone that required its own DMP. I then projected it onto 3D geometry generated in Nuke to add real volume. I integrated the character into the scene, retimed the arm movement, replaced his hat with one more narratively appropriate, and generated a forest using 3D trees and additional stock material. Finally, I added snow, fog, and atmospheric elements that reinforced the feeling of a cold and inhospitable environment.
Shot 02 was one of the longest and most complex shots, as it combined an especially detailed matte painting, explosions, bullets, the character with retime, the robot head track, the plane, the laser shot, and atmospheric effects. It was, probably, the shot that came closest to a real production shot, with multiple versions, adjustments, and simultaneous decisions.
Shot 03 is possibly the most spectacular. Being a fully CG shot, the greatest challenge was rebuilding the explosions and fire from composition, as the original effects did not reach the desired level. I generated the fire from multiple 2D layers, did the environment lookdev, adjusted the camera and plane movement through retime to achieve a more cinematic finish, and integrated it with the final matte painting of the sequence.
In Shot 04 came one of the strongest technical challenges: replacing the actor's head with that of the digital character. I used Keen Tools to track the real head and then transfer it to the 3D model. This shot also generated two derivative shots that served as support within the final edit. Afterwards, I built the ocular laser effect from various layers of detail, grain, waves, refractions, and particles, seeking to convey a futuristic feeling but with physical presence in the environment.
The last shot, Shot 05, was also fully CG. It started from a forest matte painting provided in production that I complemented by adding three-dimensional trees to avoid a flat feeling. I adjusted the foreground so the projection would integrate naturally, did the lookdev of the fire, smoke, and plane, and reinforced the atmosphere by adding more 2D fire to enhance the climate of destruction and tension with which the sequence had to close.
Conclusion
The Bounty Hunter has been a long, demanding project full of real learning. It was my first experience working on a sequence as if it were part of a cinematic production, developing color criteria, building atmospheres from scratch, solving technical problems that only appear in complex shots, and above all, proving that growth comes with analysis, method, and constant work.