Visual Effects Vocabulary 5

Question 1

What does 'despill' mean in green screen VFX work?

Accepted Answer

Correcting unwanted green or blue color contamination on a subject caused by screen reflections

Answer

Despill is a compositing process that removes the green or blue color cast reflected onto a subject from the chroma key screen, restoring natural skin tones and edges.

Question 2

In 3D animation, what is 'inverse kinematics' (IK)?

Accepted Answer

A rigging system where the position of an end effector drives the rotation of parent joints automatically

Answer

Inverse kinematics calculates the joint rotations needed to place an end effector (like a hand or foot) at a desired position, simplifying character posing.

Question 3

What is a 'witness camera' on a VFX production shoot?

Accepted Answer

A wide-angle or overhead camera recording the set to capture spatial reference for VFX reconstruction

Answer

A witness camera records a wide view of the set and action, giving VFX artists spatial and contextual reference to accurately reconstruct environments and camera positions.

Question 4

What does 'cryptomatte' provide in a rendered image?

Accepted Answer

Automatically generated mattes for individual objects or materials, stored as image data for easy compositing extraction

Answer

Cryptomatte generates per-object or per-material ID mattes automatically during rendering, letting compositors isolate any element without manual roto work.

Question 5

What is 'voxel' as used in VFX simulations?

Accepted Answer

A volumetric pixel — the 3D equivalent of a pixel, representing a value in a three-dimensional grid

Answer

A voxel is a value element in a 3D grid — the volumetric counterpart to a 2D pixel — widely used in VFX to represent smoke, fire, clouds, and other volumetric effects.

Visual Effects Practice Test

Visual Effects Practice Test

Visual Effects Vocabulary 5