Photography Workshop At Best MAAC Institute Kolkata

Best Maac Animation Vfx Institute in Kolkata has recently organized a Photography workshop with its student team across all three centers popularly known as MAAC Chowringhee, MAAC Ultadanga, MAAC Rashbehari.

It was an extensive 6hour Photography session divided into theory (taken into Indoor) activity and Practical (Outdoor) activity.

For which MAAC Chowringhee student team visited Park street and Maidan Area.

MAAC Rashbehari student team Visited Rabindra Sarawar Lake Area.

MAAC Ultadanga visited Kumar Tuli and Ganga Riverside for outdoor photography.

A truly funfilled photography activity and event for all students enjoying the event with full zeal.

The photography activity was conducted by Artist Name – Suroshree Seal who holds experience in all different kinds of photography –

Artist holds strong aesthetic sense -Technical knowledge of multiple camera technologies and camera angels with extensive communication and service skills.

Artist with her critical thinking, analysis, and strong attention to small detailing helped our student team to achieve success in the said field.

*Project-

• -Assist Raghu Rai in VelVel festival 2019
• -Photography for ( our honorable CM (Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee talk show) held at NDTV 2015
• -Photography for Femina 2016
• -Freelancing in Ei Samay, Times of India, Hindustan Times, ABP , DNA Mumbai
• -Photography for Spring Ideas Communication 2015-2016
• -Official Photographer of Stone by Kounteya Sinha 2017 (photography exhibition)
• -Official Photographer of Viva by Kounteya Sinha 2018 (photography exhibition)
• -Official photographer of Queensline inauguration Mumbai 2018
• -Official photographer of “How India prays” photography exhibition in Jaipur house  Delhi 2018
• -Official photographer of KIPF 2019 (Kolkata international photography festival
• -Official Photographer of “Shakti” ITC sonar Kolkata Photography Exhibition 2019
• -Official photographer of “SaintHood project” Rome, Italy 2016
• -Official photographer of “KDW_2019” Kolkata Designer Week
• -Freelancing for Westbengal tourism 2018
• -Freelancing for West Bengal Govt in Rural area (Jhargram) 2019
• -Documenting Om puri’s Last Work
• Legendary actor Om Puri’s last major work was to support Kolkata’s rickshaw  walas got the opportunity to photograph him. 2017
• -Documenting Sundarbans 2017
• -Documenting Sikkim 2019
• -Documenting Andaman 2017
• -Documenting Pingla 2018
• -Documenting Murshidabad 2018
• -Documenting Kashmir 2019
• -Work for renowned designer Mr. Raja Biswas
• -Work for renowned designer Kastui Guha
• -Work for renowned designer Pranay Baidaya

Classroom environment makes or breaks learning experiences that’s why our motive was of combining both outdoor and indoor classroom activity through this workshop.

Interesting classrooms always maintain space for activities which engage the students and teachers resulting in effective learning.

A topic was given and participants are divided into two groups.

Suroshree Seal  is an expert artist handelling various projects here are the glimps of few of her projects she has handeled so far.

The activity enhances critical thinking, independent research and skillful communication of students

It had helped them to learn and think in a different perspective and helps to develop knowledge.

The workshop provides an active environment, and teamwork which helped students to maintain healthy relationship.

The said activity allows interaction between the team members which results in better bonding between the students.

Introvert students got a golden opportunity to express themselves.

Students are made aware about the real world outside with an angle of photography.

The workshop is a comparison of what has studied with real life experience is of great worth.

Overwhelming response from student with their active participation made the workshop superb success and interesting.

The said activity offered the students an opportunity to deepen their understanding of the concepts they have learned.

Join the best animation Vfx gaming web and graphic designing institute in Kolkata and make a ravishing career and grow as an individual obtaining different skills with us.

The Lion King: A Game Changer In Photo-Real Animation

Through this blog today we will let you know how the recent movie The Lion Kingbecame a game changer in photo-real animation.

Directed by Jon Favreau and produced under the banner of Walt Disney Pictures this film is a photorealistic computer-animated remake of Disney’s 1994 traditionally animated film.

It is one of the most expensive films made with a budget of around $260 million.

Critics praised this movie for its visual effects, music and vocal performances.

Some of the well known stars delivered voices for this movie such as Donald Glover, Seth Rogen, James Earl Jones and others.

Innovative Photo-Realism Animation

From roaming giraffes to the grazing rhinos all looked lifelike in this path-breaking movie.

This movie stunned the audience worldwide by making use of photorealistic computer generated animation.

Lush green backdrops, flowing streams, waterfalls, swaying trees every image looked like scenes from natural documentary.

The Lion King is a game changer movie where Moving Picture Company or MPC provided the visual effects under the supervision of Robert Legato, Elliot Newman and Adam Valdez.

Disney described it as “technologically groundbreaking” approach and not as live-action.

In photo-realism artist reproduces the image as realistic as possible through various digital devices like 3D Scanning, multiple camera capture etc.

Tremendous amount of research and recording of still photography occurred under the guidance of cinematographer Caleb Deschanel to reproduce the reality on the screen.

Director Favreau wanted to make this film in documentary style so creative team visited forest of Kenya to observe and record images of forest land, jungle animals so that they can represent it accurately in digital platform.

Places like Yellowstone National Park and Mono Lake served as inspiration for the Elephant Graveyard and Serengeti National Park inspired the Pride Lands.

Jon Favreau avoided conventional Motion-Capture technique in this movie and relied completely on photorealistic CGI shots.

MPC added new level of details in digital characters look, animation and how the skin and the fur behave.

The Lion King utilized Virtual-Reality technology where cameras were placed in virtual space to emulate live –action production.

Dozens and dozens of African landscape were designed digitally with immense effort so that audience can appreciate the beauty of the place.

To recreate the real world every aspects of lighting, shading, depth of field were taken into account.

Digital Compositing played a big role in this movie as the key focus was on creating reality.

Shooting In Virtual Environment

The Lion King was shot in virtual reality simulated environment.

Every environment was digitally made and every character was key-frame animated.

VR system enabled cinematographer to create the scene he wanted and then shoot it in real world; VR headset transported cinematographer to virtual set.

At MPC new software were developed for this movie to create scenes with a shaky-cam look of a handheld camera.

Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel actually could change the landscapes, virtual lights, dolly track, camera lenses in huge virtual environment using software option.

Rob Legato VFX supervisor took the virtual production of this film to the next level as he said “Favreau turned ‘The Lion King’ into narrative documentary about animals and nature trying to co-exist in The Circle of Life.

Virtual production reduced time, budgets and physical challenges of shooting on location.

For this film artists worked across studios in Los Angeles, London and Bangalore to deliver magnificent CGI shots.

Photo-Real Characters

Supervisor Adam Valdez at MPC said that they shot 12,000 photographs and whittled it down to 1600 shots of movie.

Through the art of photorealism the team combined the best of live-action into the animation.

Enormous planning and care went into creating the natural world of Kenya into virtual digital screen.

Making realistic animals was the most challenging aspects for animators at MPC.

Animators used artificial intelligence to make virtual characters act in ways that mimicked real animals.

Around 86 various different animal species were brought to life for the film.

MUFASA

MPC made remarkable effort in producing new software for more complex fur shading, rendering and skin simulation.

New software provided so realistic looking Mufasa that you can see minute detail of the skin.

At MPC animators designed each character by paying close attention to anatomy, fur or feathers, texture, shading of eyes and movements were made authentic according to real life.

Animation Supervisor Andy Jones animated the body muscles according to the body weight.

Animators worked together to make the 3D sculpting of animals as real as captured photographs of animals in Africa.

Each photorealistic character took about nine months to fully develop and was built by mix of real-life references and characters from original movie.

Disney successfully blended together live-action with virtual reality, CG animation and photo-real imagery.

SIMBA

For designing Simba, Adam Valdez focused on cubs of Masai Mara game reserve in Kenya.

Above image shows how Simba was crafted step by step from the scratch to the furry cute little cub.

Lot of times were spent in managing the millions of body hairs of Simba during the animation.

Simba’s hair patterns and shades were decided by software and by placing all details correctly Simba emerged as real lion cub.

Giving movement to Simba’s tiny legs was another big task for the animators.

Individual characteristic of each animal, their way of movement, behaviour, looks everything was photo-real.

Cute and Ugly combination of Timon and Pumbaaa needed research work to find out how they stand, move and what is the function of their paws.

Hyenas

Faces of Hyenas had skull shapes and efforts were given to sculpting their eyes and teeth to highlight their threat as they are scavengers in ecosystem.

Animators faced challenges in providing facial expressions to the animal characters; they focused on jaw motion, corners of the mouth and lips for facial movements.

More attentions were given on choreographing the action to convey emotions rather than on mouth such as jumping on the rocks, display of affection between parents and children, prancing around the watering hole etc.

Over all The Lion King opened up new possibilities for the filmmakers to represent reality through photo-real animation.

Connect with us to know more on Photo-Real Animation.

Maya or Blender 3D Software Battle

Today in this blog we will discuss on which is a better as a software Blender and Maya.

Both Blender and Maya is a 3D Computer Graphics Software and are available on Windows, Mac OS and Linux.

Blender is available freely whereas Maya is a licensed product.

Maya and Blender have their own properties and limitations.

Both of them are used for creating animated movies, visual effects, 3D models and video games.

They have helped the professional as well as independent filmmakers in creating their master pieces.

Let’s take a look on both the software individually one by one.

Maya Is Award-Winning Software

Maya was originally developed by Alias Systems Corporation but currently owned by Autodesk Inc.

Maya is mainly used in large studio productions.

This software has already received few Academy Awards for Technical Achievements.

It has various tools for modeling and animation.

An artist can create 3D models in various formats and then animate those models by using animation tools.

Maya has wide tool sets for photorealistic imagery.

It can be used for simulation, modeling, motion graphic, rigging, virtual reality, UV mapping and character creation.

It is well-known for very detailed and realistic characters development.

Maya is widely used in the film industry from the time of 2000 film Dinosaur.

It has been used in the films like Spider-Man, Ice Age, Lord of the Rings and many more.

Maya’s software interface is customizable; skilled developers can take their productivity to a higher level.

Developers or artists can easily access to Maya Embedded Language (MEL) which can customize the interface by writing down scripts.

Rendering In Maya

Maya has Arnold Renderer to solve complex rendering problems.

Arnold Renderer helps to render high-quality images quickly and efficiently so that artists can spend more time in creation and less time on rendering.

Maya’s robust tool enables the artist to create complex animation tasks; it provides better quality animations.

Maya has powerful toolkit to sculpt the intricate right expressions.

It can open multi projects at the same time.

Maya offers cloth simulation and particle simulation for smoke, dust and spray.

Maya supports ‘Mash’ which is a node-based tool for Motion Graphics.

Maya is heavily used in Film and Television medium by professionals to produce stunning visuals for promotional television commercials to complex animations.

Video Games companies uses modeling tools of Maya to create realistic environment within the games; 3D human figures can be developed easily with this software.

Car designing companies also make use of Maya software to create car models with detailed shape plans; interior of the car components can be shared and reviewed by clients with the help of this software.

Maya’s streamlined toolsets allows developers to produce stunning digital art works.

It is the favorite software for top animation studios like Blue Sky Studios, MPC (Moving Picture Company), ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) etc.

Definitely Maya has certain components which are far superior to Blender but that doesn’t means Blender is despicable.

Blender also possesses unique functionality which makes the task easier for professionals.

Before selecting between Maya or Blender the artist should consider the project requirement, budget and the skills of the modelers.

Blender Is Free And Open Source Software

Blender was started as in –house tool for NeoGeo, a Dutch commercial animation company; it has been already used for television commercials in various parts of the world.

Similar to Maya, Blender also has features like 3D modeling, texturing, rigging, skinning, fluid simulation, particle simulation, animation, motion graphics and UV mapping.

Unlike Maya, Blender supports non-linear video editing and composition.

Blender has in-built Video Editor which allows basic actions like video cuts and complex tasks like video masking.

Blender Video Editor supports live preview, Luma waveform, Chroma vector-scope and histogram displays.

Video Editor has 32 slots for adding videos, images, audios and effects; it also enables audio mixing, syncing and waveform visualization.

Blender comes with in-built compositor which allows the artist to do everything within the program without exporting to third party programs.

Blender Compositor has splendid library of nodes for creating camera effects, color grading and much more.

Compositor is an essential part of Visual Effects or VFX; Blender Compositor can render multilayer OpenEXR files.

OpenEXR files are high dynamic range image file format used for movies.

Full compositing with images and video files is possible through Blender’s Compositor feature.

Hollywood directors have used Blender to produce stunning VFX for the movies and television series.

Other than video editing and compositing; Blender has Python scripting for tool creation, import/export from other formats and task automation.

Python scripting is an object oriented programming language which helps in adding functionalities.

Rendering In Blender

Rendering animation in Blender is bit easier.

Blender’s Cycles is a path-tracing render engine.

Cycles Renderer produces fast, flexible and realistic results.

Cycles uses GPU (Graphic Processing Unit) for faster rendering.

Blender Is Under The Shadow Of Maya

Blender is ideal for small-scale studios or for freelancers or hobbyists.

In the battle between Maya and Blender; Maya wins according to the users because its interface is more clear and standard.

User Interface of Maya is simple and effective on many forums.

Maya is easy to learn as it has expressive tools whereas Blender is a bit difficult to grasp.

To create 3D model; the artist must select the most user friendly 3D modeling software between Maya or Blender; because if the software is not user friendly then lot of time will go waste in searching process.

Maya as a licensed product has lesser bugs whereas Blender is more bug-prone and needs infixes with each version.

Blender is popular among interior design and architecture students because of its amazing tools for texturing and lighting whereas Maya is meant for video gamesdevelopment as it has lot of option for environment creation.

Hence both Maya and Blender are equally good as a 3D application.

Get in touch with us to know more about Maya and Blender.

Dazzling Star Of MAAC Rashbehari

Today’s blog will cover the experiences of MAAC Rashbehari Alumni Pradyut Chowdhury who recently worked in the movie The Lion King as 3D Rigging Artist.

We all know that The Lion King directed by Jon Favreau hit the theatres all over the world in the month of July 2019 and got huge praises from the audiences across the world.

Pradyut Chowdhury’s contribution to The Lion King movie delighted each and every MAAC members.

But before working as 3D artist in The Lion King; Pradyut had amazing MAAC days at MAAC Rashbehari Centre.

Let’s look into his interesting and creative career path till now.

Gifted 3D Artist Of MAAC Rashbehari

As you know MAAC Rashbehari is one of the reputed Institution of Animation, VFX, Multimedia and Gaming which has covered incredible journey so far in craving extremely talented professional artists out of budding aspirants.

Our alumni Pradyut Chowdhury joined MAAC Rashbehari in the year 2014 for the course Autodesk Maya.

Autodesk Maya is a highly interactive modeling, texturing, rigging software used by professional 3D artists in the audio/video medium.

Autodesk Maya has huge potential in animation, VFX and gaming industry.

Under this course Pradyut learned about digital sculpting, texturing, character rigging, animation, look development, lighting, Hair and cloth simulation, rendering and skinning.

Pradyut learned 3D modeling, rigging and animation under Autodesk Maya Course and completed it in the year 2016.

During his period of learning he received full guidance of MAAC Rashbehari ’s dedicated teachers and guest faculty.

MAAC Rashbehari ‘s well-equipped studio helped him to learn the course in professional environment.

After the course completion Pradyut Chowdhury formed a team with his fellow classmates to make an animated short film for the 24FPS competitive event.

MAAC Rashbehari Project ‘Ek Tu Aur Ek Main’

Pradyut along with his fellow classmates formed a team called ‘Dhichkeyaoo’.

This ‘Dhichkeyaoo’ team of artists prepared a short romantic animated film called ‘Ek Tu Aur Ek Main’ in the year 2015 for which they won Special Jury Award at 24 FPS event.

The above picture shows full energetic and joyful team of ‘Dhichkeyaoo’ with Pradyut at forefront.

Team ‘Dhichkeyaoo’ worked for hours with patience to make their sweet and short animated film.

The happy faces of the team ‘Ek Tu Aur Ek Main’ saying it loud that hard work wins at the end of the day.

Pradyut and his team ‘Dhichkeyaoo’ won this Special Jury Award during 24 FPS International Animation Award Ceremony in the year2015 for ‘Ek Tu Aur Ek Main’ short.

24 FPS is an annual event of MAAC which selects the best animated short film every year.

Pradyut’s team used Bollywood music track in the animated short ‘Ek Tu Aur Ek Main’ .

The plot of the film follows a young lover boy who after lot of hassle finally proposes a beautiful girl with a red rose flower.

For making this short Pradyut’s team ‘Dhichkeyaoo’ first designed the 3D characters.

They sketched the male protagonist, two young girls and one fat belly traffic guard.

When every part of the body designing was complete then they did character rigging.

Under character rigging each body parts were given movements according to the storyline; such as eyeball movement, hand movement, facial expressions so on.

Each artist of the team ‘Dhichkeyaoo’ including Pradyut delivered their best in 3D character designing and rigging.

They worked on the software Autodesk Maya for this project ‘Ek Tu Aur Ek Main’.

For background designing they constructed 3D buildings, fences, roads, bridge and trees with the software tools.

Team artists even enacted some of the scenes so that 3D artist can sketch it down on the characters of 3D platform.

3D lighting and composition were also taken care of during the post-production stage of ‘Ek Tu Aur Ek Main’.

Working on this project was a challenge as well as fun for the team ‘Dhichkeyaoo’.

This project prepared Pradyut Chowdhury wholly for professional expedition.

Rewards Received At Esteemed MPC

Our gifted artist Pradyut Chowdhury is currently working at Moving Picture Company or MPC VFX Company located at Bengaluru.

He is appointed as 3D Rigging Artist at MPC and already has quite few movies to his credits.

Pradyut has made us swoon with pride with his participation in making the milestone movie The Lion King as 3D Rigging Artist.

Presence of Pradyut’s name in the acknowledgement card is the absolute moment of joy for his mentors.

Movie The Lion King is a 3D computer animated film with photorealistic visuals.

This movie has breathtaking VFX shots which have been achieved by technically skilled and inventive team of VFX artists and Pradyut is one of them.

As 3D Rigging Artist Pradyut sculpted 3D objects and gave movements to them.

Definitely this masterpiece movie has taught many artistic lessons to him.

Other than The Lion King he has also worked for other VFX packed movies.

Like X-Men & Dark Phoenix which releases in the month of June 2019.

This American superhero film has good amount of VFX shots as well as animation techniques.

Superheroes with their exceptional super powers in this movie are the result of magic between technology and imagination.

Here we can see Pradyut’s name along with other VFX artists in the credit list who delivered their best effort for this movie.

This is another credit card for the movie Pokemon Detective Pikachu which has Pradyut’s name mentioned.

This movie too has high-end visual effects which are completely photo-realistic.

As Rigging Artist Pradyut covered character animation for the 3D Detective Pikachu.

From those huge lists of VFX artist names we can predict the amount of VFX works in Hollywood movies.

Our alumni Pradyut Chowdhury have definitely gathered many lessons through these International film project and we hope he will continue to do so in future also.

Pradyut’s achievement is a source of pride for all MAAC Rashbehari center’s Mentors.

Today MAAC Rashbehari center trained skilled artists are placed at different media studios all around the world and they are doing brilliant work to cherish forever.

If you have that passion to work on International Film Projects then join our MAAC Courses to make yourself industry standard professionals.

Raja’s Masterblaster With MAAC Advfx Course

Hello Readers it is our proud moment that we are sharing with you about the interesting yet challenging journey of our MAAC student name Raja Acharjee completing ADVFX course.

As you know MAAC or Maya Academy of Advanced Cinematics is the best 3D Animation and Visual Effects Institute in the Eastern Zone.

From its inception it is deeply involved in cultivating skilled and efficient professionals who later successfully established themselves in different studios or production houses around the world.

MAAC offers life changing experiences to its each and every student.

Here we will cover the experiences of Raja Acharjee that he gathered at MAAC Centre.

Career Course ADVFX Plus At  MAAC

Immediately after acquiring educational qualification Raja Acharjee joined ADVFXPlus Course at MAAC Institute.

You may be curious about why ADVFX Plus Course?

Because VFX or Visual Effects is an advanced technique which plays an important role in feature films, television programs, video games, commercials and other media.

Every entertainment media makes use of ADVFX in the present time.

You may have watched visually stunning exceptional movies like Guardians of Galaxy, The Planet of the Apes and lot more.

Starting from Hollywood movies to Bollywood VFX is spreading its wings within every Visual Content.

Raja Acharjee chose this course because of its wide prospects.

ADVFX Plus Course provided Raja the fundamental and advanced skills that is required for successful VFX artist.

This course covers vast subjects ranging from 3D filmmaking like pre-production and storytelling to digital design and editing.

ADVFX Course helps to enhance skills and meet industry requirements.

By joining this course Raja got the opportunity to work in a studio-like environment for the practical training sessions.

Studio-like environment at MAAC helps the student to get same experience as a professional VFX artist.

ADVFX Plus course empowered Raja with latest tools and technologies; it gave him understanding of the new-age production workflow.

Raja got familiar with the job of VFX artist and how VFX artist turns an ordinary scene into an extraordinary scene with visual effects.

He learned about the magic behind the creation of stunning and unbelievable visuals using ADVFX Plus course.

Raja got the training on various advanced software and digital equipments.

MAAC has excellent faculty members to guide students at every step.

Raja studied at MAAC for two years and in these two years he worked hard to prepare himself for the professional world.

Raja says in an interview that “The training that I got from MAAC during my course period has taught me a lot”.

Empowered with the ADVFX Plus course Raja got confidence to face the professional work place.

Raja immediately got placement after the completion of the course through the campus placement procedure.

Getting placement was a crucial point in Raja’s life.

He felt overjoyed and he thanked every member of MAAC for being with him during the difficult phase of his life.

Placement As VFX Paint Artist

We are so proud of Raja Acharjee today for his success.

Raja is presently employed at the famous Prana Studio located at Mumbai.

He is working as a VFX Paint Artist at Prana Studio.

The task of VFX artist is making the unbelievable into believable.

Raja Acharjee as a paint artist is responsible to remove unwanted objects from a shot, colour matching and image reconstruction.

VFX paint artist plays important role in movies today.

Prana Studio has contributed in Bollywood movies and television series.

Raja handles difficult paint tasks with in tight working environment.

Raja is trained to handle any sort of work pressure under any circumstances.

At Prana Studio he and his teammates handle various types of big projects which have to be finished at the deadlines.

Deadlines are not scary things for Raja Acharjee as he dealt with many of such deadlines during his training period at MAAC.

At MAAC students goes through various training programs which develops their working skills under competitive situations.

While working Raja is learning too from his co-workers because teamwork is extremely essential for a healthy office atmosphere.

Raja is thankful to MAAC and he shared his view as “Thanks to you MAAC for empowering me and making my career bright”.

He added more that “I am glad to work at my dream Studio. I dedicate my success to all the team members of MAAC who guided me to become a good human being and worthwhile artist”.

Raja has shown his gratitude towards his faculty members and classmates who showed him path throughout his days at MAAC.

He has a bright future; there is lot more waiting for him to be explore.

We are sure that his work will take him through wonderful experiences.

MAAC’s Alumnus never hesitated to show their love and gratitude toward their mentors.

MAAC’S Alumnus has always paid respect to their mentors from all over the world.

Raja has confidence on himself and he knows well that he will fulfil his task with great effort and dedication.

Raja is an inspiration for other students of MAAC.

We wish Raja all the best for his lot more success in his journey as a Paint VFX artist.

MAAC Is The Best Institute

MAAC Kolkata is the best place to learn courses on animation and VFX.

MAAC has highly qualified mentors and experienced training team to guide students in a professional ways.

MAAC transforms aspirants with mediocre talents into expertise.

All MAAC Centres have well equipped studios with latest software to keep the students up-to-date with the professional world.

MAAC focuses on quality and not quantity.

Quality education is the priority at all MAAC Centres.

It offers International standard study materials and training for the benefit of its students.

MAAC Centres offer different events, seminars, workshops, competitions time to time.

All the MAAC Kolkata Centres like MAAC Ultadanga, MAAC Rashbehari, MAAC Chowringhee are under the directorship of Mr. Naveen Choudhury.

Mr. Naveen Choudhury is a very noble person with his tremendous contributions MAAC has achieved new heights in its journey.

Hope we will win the heart of our students in the near future also.

Dear aspirants give us opportunity to serve you best.