Here's a PV report on how to create 3D composites at 4K quality using a tool chain consisting of 'free to use' or low cost tools:

I've made myself a goal of creating a short worthy of presentation at a film festival. Basically because creatively it is the next step up from corporate videos. It's actually very hard to do, I've put more than 1000 hours in an have virtually nothing to show for it. However this long weekend has allowed me to get a whole pile of tests done and even have the 3D printer running for a few hours.

I've built this 'studio' in a spare room and I'm going about dealing with the challenges of video is a small space. Audio has been a bit of a challenge, I've been adding tiles to the ceiling in blocks of £90, and that doesn't get you many tiles!. Ikea has been my friend in terms of cheap deep pile rugs.

I've purchased Fusion Studio so that I can get access to the proper version of Primatte (Keying). I'm just getting my head around keep-out mattes which you can see connected to the garbage matte below (two Primattes, one to key the other to build the keep-out).

Here's a few seconds of bringing a pile of stuff together, It's a Fusion composition where the background is created in Cheetah3D. The interfaces are procedurally generated:

So I arranged a set of DMX Scenes to flow from one to another.

Mostly it turn out to be more complex than I expected. I written up my findings here:

http://wbavproductions.co.uk/resources/DMXControl.html

Natron

Thanks to @czarek for heads up on this "thing" called Natron.
Actually in version 1.2.1 and beta v2, it comes bundled with lots of useful plugins and features and there's some more you can throw in for free, like the TuttleOFXs. If you're doing frequent or/and complex composite work and want a FREE node based workflow solution, check this baby out, it's a clone of Nuke... for more adventurous, less purchasing power people with loads of work :P

It is not by any means my "area", so other people can take over the thread and give better and knowledgeable answers and advice.
I can only say that I'm really enjoying the experience, cheers =)

Natron forum - https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/natron-vfx

 
 
MERCI BEAUCOUP à Alexandre Gauthier-Foichat et Fréderic Devernay
and all people contributing to this project

Here is a little before and after comparison video to show how far you can push hacked footage during a color grade.

Hope ya like it,

Michael "Pixelphile"