Hi snicholshms,

Honestly I never really investigated training courses too much because I joined the beta testing team literally within a couple of weeks of my purchase of RED 2.5. (They wanted me for my ignorance, LOL, to see how novice users took to the software, what had a tendency to stump them, etc.) So most of my learning came from plain old experimentation, reading the manual, and reading the beta list posts of others with vast RED and effects software experience. I also followed most of the tutorials in the manual and some from Tim's Corner on the Boris FX webiste.

I did inquire once about the "official" RED training classes offered by Boris FX directly and through their certified trainers (I forgot the name of those companies and the class names). But those are very beginning level classes and I quickly surpassed most of what they'd be covering just by reading the manual.

One of the most useful techniques is probably to just get your hands on as many RED settings as you can, from the RED keyframe library and whatever other sources you have. Look at them, study them, click the visibility of different tracks and layers on and off to see the effect they have on the effect as a whole. Also check out the Creative Cow forums for tutorials there on any of the Boris trio of effects packages (Boris FX, Graffiti, and RED, since RED is really like a supercharged combo of the other two). I even look at Adobe After Effects tutorials there, because, although I've never used AE and although its terminology is quite different in some instances (e.g., parent-child tracks vs. 3D container), you can learn a lot from effects built in AE because RED is very similar to it. Of particular interest to me was a "light storm" AE tutorial over at COW. I couldn't build the exact same thing in RED because the end filters are different, but I got pretty close.

I don't think I'm allowed to give specifics at this time, but there will be a new book, sort of a RED user guide by a POWER RED guy, that is supposed to roughly coincide with the release of RED 3 GL. So that means it should be coming along soon. Keep your eyes open.:-)

All this said, the present lack of high-level, advanced training materials for RED is a bit of a disappointment to me, especially compared to AE. I, too, would love to go somewhere for an intensive 2-day training session in RED by somebody who's using it to build, for example, those HBO "next" ads that are so AWESOMELY designed.

Hope this helps.

Elizabeth

I have seen training manuals for Graffiti and FX but no tapes. They are available for purchase at the Boris site and can be used as self paced training material. From the main page choose Training -> Student Guides

I learn best from AV material, manuals loose my concentration but are great for picking up detail I had missed in the past.

I have not heard of tapes before, any pointers?

I am UK based and would welcome RED training, perhaps a new business venture for Europe :-)

Any Takers?

PAW