Nominations 2019 BAFTA Awards Animation & VFX Category

On 9th January British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) disclosed about the nominations for their 72nd British Academy Film Awards.

In today’s blog we will take a look on the nomination announced for 2019 BAFTA Awards in the Animation & VFX category.

The 72nd British Academy Film Awards will be held on 10 February 2019 at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

BAFTA ceremony will be hosted by Joanna Lumley and will telecast only on BBC One and BBC One HD.

The Nominees in the Animated Film Category are Incredible 2, Isle of Dogs and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Nomination for 2019 BAFTA awards in the British Short Animation Category is also announced which is exclusively for the UK’s local artistic creations.

Nominees in the British Short Animated Category are-

Three nominees in hand-drawn animated shorts included I’m OK by Elizabeth Hobb, Abigail Addison and Jelena Popović, Marfa by Greg McLeod and Myles McLeod, Roughhouse by Jonathan Hodgson and Richard Van Den Boom.

I’M OK is a 6 minute without dialogue UK’s animated film.

It explores the wounds of heartbreak and trauma.

BAFTA Awards Animation & VFX Category @Animation Kolkata

Marfa is 8 minutes UK’Ss short animated film about a place out of time.

A deserted place where strange lights dance in the night sky, a countryside of lost horses, freaks and food trucks.

Roughhouse is a 15 minutes 30 seconds British short animated film about three friends on a new adventure in a strange town, but when a new member joins their loyalty breaks apart with terrifying sequences.

Nominees in the Animated Film Category are-

Released in February 2018 Isle of Dogs is a stop-motion-animated science-fiction comedy drama film directed by Wes Anderson.

It received nominations at the 76th Golden Globe Awards, 72nd British Academy Film Awards and 91st Academy Awards for best animated feature film and best original score.

American filmmaker Wesley Wales Anderson’s films are known for their distinctive visual and narrative styles.

Anderson won Silver Bear for Best Director for this film.

The story line follows a young boy Koyu Rankin searching for his dog after the species is banished to an island after the outbreak of a canine flu.

Produced by companies such asIndian Paintbrush, Anderson’s own production company, American Empirical Pictures in association with Studio Babelsberg.

According to Anderson Isle of Dogs is strongly influenced by the films of Akira Kurosawa.

It is produced at the 3 Mills Studios in East London and the animation department included number of people who worked previously on the film Fantastic Mr. Fox made by Anderson.

This film received the praise for its animation, story and humour.

Around 20,000 faces and 1,105 animated puppets were created by 12 sculptors working six days a week for the film.

2,000 more puppets were made for background characters and detailed puppets of the main characters took an average of two to three months to create.

Music was composed by Alexandre Desplat who also worked on Anderson’s previous film Fantastic Mr. Fox

The soundtrack of this film featured various original and selected songs from a variety of musicians mainly from Japan.

The songs used in this film had origins in classic Japanese cinema such as Akira Kurosawa’s film Drunken Angel and Seven Samurai.

It is the third nomination for Incredibles 2 director Brad Bird who won previously for The Incredibles(2004) and Ratatouille (2007).

Brad Bird is an American animation director best known for his animated feature films.

Brad developed a love for the art of animation at an early age and his mentor is Milt Kahl one of Disney’s reputed animation artist.

Bird first animated feature film was The Iron Giant made in 1999.

Both of Bird’s film The Incredibles(2004) and Ratatouille (2007) were placed among Pixar’s highest-grossing features and gave Bird two BAFTA awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Screenplay.

Incredibles 2 theatrically released in Disney Digital 3-D, Dolby Cinema, IMAX and IMAX 3D on June 2018.

This film received praise for its animation, voice acting, humour, action sequences and musical score.

This film was nominated at the 76th Golden Globe Awards.

This film made $182.7 million in its opening weekend, set the record for best debut for an animated film.

It has grossed over $1.2 billion worldwide, creating the fourth highest-grossing film of 2018, the second highest-grossing animated film and the 15th highest-grossing film of all-time.

BAFTA Awards Animation & VFX Category @Animation Kolkata

Directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman; animated superhero film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is the third film in the BAFTA nomination.

This film was theatrically released in United States on December 2018 had grossing over $326 million worldwide against a $90 million budget.

It received praised for animation, characters, story, voice acting, humour and soundtrack.

It won 76th Golden Globe Awards, 91st Academy Awards and 24th Critics’ Choice Awards as Best Animated Feature Film.

According to the director Bob Persichetti, the hand-drawn animation elements created for the film gave it a unique experience.

There is a combination of old-fashioned hand-drawn multi-plane camera and a modern virtual reality environment.

Nominees in the Special Visual Effects Category are-

In the category of Special Visual Effects nominees are Avengers:Infinity War,Black Panther, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, First Man and Ready Player One.

Avengers: Infinity War released in IMAX and 3D in 2018; it received praise for visual effects, action sequences, musical score and themes.

Along with BAFTA nomination it also received nomination for Best Visual Effects at the 91st Academy Awards.

Film Black Panther received 91st Academy Awards nomination and 76th Golden Globe nomination along with BAFTA nomination.

Any good animated movie gets the praise from the critics as well as from the audience.

There are many animated feature films which received BAFTA awards in the past years along with Academy Awards.

Receiving prestigious award is the dream of any animation film director which can be fulfilled only by hard work, hard work and hard work.

If you have that talent which will fetch applaud from the people then join our Maac Centre, we will help you to reach the big platform.

Journey of MAAC Alumni As Lighting Artist

In this blog we will unfold the complete voyage of Sandipan Dey in MAAC Ultadanga and his experience at the time of studying at the centre.

The Smile of the face says it all.

The brightness of this person’s face is brought to you by none other than the

MAYA ACADEMY OF ADVANCED CINEMATICS KOLKATA popularly known as MAAC.

Anyone who comes to MAAC unaware of their ability finds their true calling.

After hard work and struggle comes the success, this is the natural process in every human’s life.

In our centre miniatures are cultured and grown to rise to the sunshine and among those sun shines stood Sandipan Dey.

The Journey of Sandipan Dey is something exceptional which we are going to tell you today.

Let’s take a look at Sandipan’s extravagant experience and the contribution of MAAC Ultadanga in shaping his career.

CAREER COURSES OF SANDIPAN DEY IN MAAC ULTADANGA

From MAAC Ultadanga, He did his course in 3D Animation and the Course name is AD3D EDGE.

Immediately after completing Class 12 standard Sandipan joined MAAC Ultadanga.

Sandipan selected AD3D Course which is a 3D animation course, which covers the complete process of animation film making from pre-production, production to post-production stage.

AD3D EDGE Course provides hand on training in latest, in demand 3D software and along with it provides training in story writing, directing, lighting and editing.

From this AD3D EDGE Course, Sandipan learned about 3d animation and lighting techniques that are used in animation movies.

For Sandipan selecting a course and studying was not easy because the course was completely different from what he studied so far in his 12th standard and he was also not sure about the prospect of the course.

In the Interview with Sandipan he said that “Faculties and Colleagues at MAAC were great support and with that support I achieved what I always wanted to Achieve.”.

The Faculty members of MAAC centre Ultadanga provided great support to him; they helped him to understand the course properly and aided to develop his talent and skill.

The mentor at the centre gave the light of hope to him and with joint cooperation and coordination Sandipan is now a happy person with bright future.

Sandipan received certificate from MAAC after successfully completing his course.

His first placement was at Maya Digital Studio located in Mumbai.

Placement Details

Sandipan rejoiced that “I got my dream job as Lighting Artist at Xentrix Studio Bangalore”.
From the beginning he wanted to be a Lighting Artist, before joining Xentrix Studio Bangalore he worked at MDS as Lighting Artist.

MDS is a prestigious Maya Digital Studio owned by Ketan Mehta and located in Mumbai.

Sandipan worked in Maya Digital Studio as a lighting artist for animation films.

After working hard and gathering experience at MDS, he landed up at his dream place in Bangalore.

Currently Sandipan Dey is working in a renowned place Xentrix CG animation Studio Bangalore as the Lighting Artist.

Xentrix Studio is a fast growing animation studio in Asia, specialized in high-end CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) animation and gaming projects.

At Xentrix Studio he has gradually improved himself as a talented animation lighting artist along with other artists.

He is well paid artist in the Xentrix now and his success story is indeed inspirational to many newcomers.

In the world of competition he has proved himself through his hard work and he believes the philosophy ‘Stay on the sunny side of life’.

Still he is maintaining the same philosophy that was taught to him by MAAC mentors.

As he said in the interview “Life never gave me anything for granted, I worked hard and achieved everything”.
He thanked his mentors at MAAC for making his dream come true.

Achievements

This Acknowledgement card reveals his skills, his effort and what he has gained from the MAAC faculties.

It is a moment of pride and joy when somebody sees his/her name in the credit list.

His work as Lighting Artist has been praised and his name is mentioned on the card along with other artists.

MAAC Ultadanga is feeling proud of his success and is wishing him the best for the upcoming happenings to come in his career.

As Sandipan said “There is many more to accomplished”.

He is not going to stop by this achievement he is working hard to add many feathers to his hat.

Mr. Sandipan Dey is highly thankful to the MAAC Ultadanga faculty team for the support they have given to him throughout his career course in the centre.

Like Sandipan many of our alumni are on their expedition to success after they named themselves as MAACites in MAAC Kolkata.

MAAC Kolkata’s Director Mr. Naveen Choudhary has applauded the numerous roles played by the alumni after they have passed their course from any of the MAAC centres of Kolkata.

Director Mr. Naveen Choudhary is the lover of creativity and who has creativity, are his proud.

Our alumni Sandipan Dey’s journey from MAAC Kolkata to the prestigious animation studios in other part of India is really an impressive one.

Power of MAAC

Chowringhee, Rashbehari and Ultadanga MAAC Centres are the Gurukuls of education where faculty members not just focus on quality by showing the framework but also hold the position that have the power to decide the placements of the students.

MAAC centre provides placement assistance to each and every student.

On completion of the course, the placement begins and each and every student gets placement on the basis of talent, skill, passion and excellence.

The recruiters comes from various large companies across the world such as NDTV India, Xentrix, Redchillies VFX, Technicolor, Zee News, Design Mantra, MDS and many others.

Preparing students for the job is the main target, mission and vision of our MAAC Centres.

MAAC Kolkata has been ranked as the Best Animation, Visual Effects and Multimedia preparing institute in Kolkata.

Our novelty, brilliance and guidance have created a niche as a premiere Animation and VFX Institute in India.

Many Faces Of Graphic Design

Here you have many faces for graphic Design today we will discuss in our blog different aspect of grapic design from the eye of graphic designer.

There are plenty of job opportunities in the market today for a Graphic Designer.

A graphic designer communicates visually through the use of typography, photography and illustration.

Graphic designer creates symbols, images and text to deliver ideas and messages.

Fields where Graphic designs are used include Corporate design, editorial design, environmental design, advertising, web design, communication design and other.

Graphic design helps in selling a product or idea. Logo, colour, packaging and text are part of creating a brand identity.

Graphic Designers plays an important role in a branding team.

From Story books to Newspaper, the display of opinion and facts can be improved with graphics and visual information.

A skilled designer work hard in stylization of a text. He / She deals with art and technique of arranging type (Typography) to make written language readable and appealing while display.

Graphic designer should have good skill of communication.

Graphic Designer working on digital computers needs to be more skilled in image-making, typography and layout.

The field of Graphic Design is growing and the demand for specialized and skilled designers is high.

Marketing and Advertising Graphic Design

From making a product visually attractive to launching it into the market for customer satisfaction need understanding of the demand of customer.

Marketing of a product depends upon People’s need, awareness and satisfaction.

People always find visual content more attractive and engaging.

A company can promote and communicate more effectively through graphic design.

The Marketing Designer works with company owners, directors, managers or marketing professionals to create assets for marketing strategies.

Even custom T-Shirts can help the companies in building a brand identity.

T-Shirts carry the brand message in a more casual and friendly way. A well designed T-Shirts with Logo or company name catches the attention of masses more easily.

Vehicle advertising or Vehicle Wrap is the most economic form of outdoor advertising.

By using proper colour, Image, Logo design, photograph in vehicle warp; the message becomes attractive.

Types of Marketing Graphic Design are:-

Postcards, Flyers and Vehicle wraps

Magazine and Newspaper Advertisements

Posters, Banners, Billboards and Brochures

Signage and trade show displays

Images of Websites and blogs

PowerPoint Presentations and etc.

Marketing Designer should have problem solving attitude, excellent communication and time management skills.

Business Card

Publication Graphic Design

Thoughtful combination of Text and Image to support the content; is an important part of Publication Design.

Books, Newspapers, Magazines, Annual Reports, Directories, Newsletter and Catalogues fall under Publication Design.

Sometimes we buy books by looking at its cover; the cover of a book communicates a story and message through colours, fonts, images, symbols etc.

For Research report, Graphic Designer can display data through charts or Info-graphics whereas for Alumni Magazine designer adds illustrations to make the article catchy.

In Publication Designing, the print materials should be on time, on budget and without complication.

Skilled Graphic Designers work with Editors and Publishers to create Layouts with selected Typography, Photography, Graphics and Illustrations, infographics.

Designer should take care of Footnotes, Folios or Active links for a web version, copyrights, photo credits and many more in Multi-page layouts.

The Stationary items help to popularise business.

Things like Letterheads, Business Cards, Folders or Envelops etc. Shows professionalism and make impression on clients.

Packaging Graphic Design

A correctly and creatively done packaging draws attentions, sends message and sells product to the customer.

All products need packaging for storage, distribution and sale.

Packaging Design is a valuable marketing tool, as it communicates directly with the consumer. Each and every box, bottle, bag, can, container tells the story of a brand.

A Catchy Label Designing of a product; differentiate it from other product in the supermarket.

Label Designing includes the information of its maker, manufacturing and expiry date, ingredients, warnings etc.

In Packaging Industry, many types of symbols are Nationally and Internationally standardised. Such as a green dot convey that the packaging can be recycled.

Packaging Designers should have expert knowledge of print processes and a eager understanding of Industrial design and Manufacturing.

Packaging Designer should be Bold, Creative and Think out of the box.

Motion Graphic Design

The Graphics in motion are called Motion Graphics; such as animation audio, typography, Imagery and Video.

For example Kinetic Typography and Graphics used in film and television opening sequences, three dimensional station identification logos of some television channels.

Motion Graphic Designs are used by motion graphic designer in openings of Movies, Television Shows and News Programs to make the introduction more entertaining.

Computer Software like Adobe After Effects, Adobe Flash and other helps to create Motion Graphics.

Motion Graphics can be used in the:- Title sequences and end credits, Advertisements, Animated Logos, Trailers, Presentations, Tutorial videos, Websites, Apps, Video Games and Banners.

Environmental Graphic Design

Visually connecting people to places to improve their overall experience by making spaces more memorable, interesting, informative and easier to navigate is the work of Environmental Graphic Designer.

This section includes elements of graphic design, architecture, Interior design, landscape design and industrial design.

Environmental Graphic Designers activate places and create efficient navigation solution.

Providing signs in the environment is an old art, as cave men used to tell stories through paintings on the walls of their caves.

Types of Environmental Graphic Design includes- Signage, Wall murals, Museum Exhibitions, Office Branding, Public transportation navigation, Retail store interiors, Stadium branding, event and conference spaces.

The ‘Way finding’ type of environmental graphic design consists of strategic signage, landmarks and visual cues that help people identify where they are and where they need to go without confusion.

Sign Boards, Kiosks or Maps in Hospitals, Museums or any public places proved to be great help for the common public to find the appropriate place where they want to go.

User Interface Graphic Design

At present situation we cannot think life without Mobile Phones; we spend a lot of time on apps.

Mobile App Design makes an App Successful. Professional mobile app designer knows how to design an app with elegant interface, perfect icons and colourful art.

The User Interface (UI) design focuses on the user’s visual experience and the design of on-screen graphic elements like buttons, menus, micro-interactions and more.

UI designers become specialize in Desktop Apps, Mobile Apps, Web Apps and games.

They work together with User Experience Designers (UX) who decides how the app works and with UI Developers who write code to make it work.

Types of User Interface Graphic Design are- Web page design, Theme design, Game Interfaces and App design.

Along with Graphic Apps UI Designers need knowledge of programming languages like HTML, CSS and Java Script.

Hope you all got the idea how this arena of career can be.

So come and connected with our expert counseling team to advise you on right career just a call away @9836321595.

The World of Animation 2D & 3D

As we all know Animation is a technique to give motion to the still images.

Animation gives the life to the characters and elements which help to communicate with the audience.

Animations are made with Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI).

Animation is achieved by a rapid succession of continuous images that slightly differ from each other.

Computer animation has become popular since Toy Story (1995), the first fully computer animated feature-length animated film.

Animated films are based on animal characters, Giant, machines, or cartoon-like humans.

Now a day Animation studios are creating realistic-looking humans. Films that have attempted this include Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within in 2001, Final Fantasy: Advent Children in 2005, The Polar Express in 2004 etc. Films like ‘The Incredibles’ and ‘Up’ have humans as protagonists, while films like ‘Avatar’ combine animation with live action to create humanoid creatures.

Computer Animation can be divided into 2D and 3D Animation.

2D Animation

In 2D animation artist creates movement in a two-dimensional space.

It requires creativity and technological skills. 2D animation helps to create characters, storyboards and backgrounds in two-dimensional environments.

Traditional 2D Animation is a technique where images are hand-drawn with every image showing some fine changes from the other image.

2D Animated Pictures are flat, without depth and shows one perspective. Objects and characters are usually drawn without fine soft shadows that we see in real life and colours have less varying shades.

2D animation uses Bitmap and Vector graphics to create and edit the animated images and is created using software programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Flash, Adobe After Effects and Anime Studio.

These animations are used in advertisements, films, television shows, computer games or websites.

Creation of 2D animation requires: Pre-Production, Production and Post-Production.

In the stage of Pre-production each shot need to be drawn correctly.

Here the main action in each scene is drawn in a comic book-like form. Storyboard is completed during this stage.

In 2D animation, character moves from one key-frame to another, thus giving an illusion of continuous movement.

The drawings are divided into “keys” and “in-betweens”. Keys have important drawing that shows the extremes of the character’s movement.

The first drawing is always a key-while “in-between” are the less important drawings in the shot. During Production motion is added to the characters.

Rotoscopy
Anime
Onion skimming
Twining
 Morphing

The above mentioned points are the main techniques used in 2D Animation.

Finally in Post-Production: Audio, music, sound effects, visual effects are added to the animation. Animation is edited with editing software and then final output comes.

Examples of 2D Animation are Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Snow white, the little mermaid etc.

Animation World @ Animation KolkataAnimation World @ Animation Kolkata

Why 2D animation:-

Since its advent in the early 1900s, it has provided huge benefits to animated projects.

2D animation is faster to create
as it does not require third dimension.

2D Animation is quicker to produce, requires less time.
It is very simple to redraw errors in 2D Animation.
Production cost is low.
3D Animation

It is the process of generating three-dimensional moving images in a digital platform.

The difference between 2D and 3D animation is the appearance of depth or the three-dimensional features. 2D Animation is a flat animation where all the actions happen in X and Y axis.

Whereas in 3D an extra dimension Z axis is present. Where X denotes height, Y denotes width and Z denotes depth.

In 1972 Edwin Earl Catmull and Fred Parke created the world’s first 3D rendered movie, an animated version of Edwin’s Left Hand. Currently Edwin Catmull is the president of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studio.

The technique of generating 3D Animation can be categorized into three main sections such as Modeling, Layout and Animation and Rendering.

Modeling is the phase that describes the procedure of generating 3D objects within a certain scene. 3D Created scene can easily be viewed from a number of angles.

Skilled Animators create a 3D polygon mesh with various connected vertices to give form to the object or character.

he mesh is then rigged by giving it an armature, a skeletal structure that can be controlled to make the object appear in specific poses.

Layout and animation phase helps in the positioning and animating the objects within a certain scene. Lastly, rendering stage is the end result or output of completed computer graphics.

3D Animation involves the following steps:-

Concept and storyboards
3D Modelling
Texturing
Rigging
Animation
Lighting
Camera Setting
Rendering
Compositing and Special VFX
Music and Foley
Editing and Final output
3D allows to create realistic objects. One can use textures and lighting to create objects that appear solid, and can even be integrated seamlessly into live video elements.

Autodesk 3Ds Max, Autodesk Maya, Cinema 4D, Houdini, ZBrush, and Blender are some of commonly used software used to create 3D animation.

Examples of 3D Animation are films like Toy Story, Shrek, Frozen, The Transformers etc.

3D animation is widely used in the following sectors:-

Architecture, Medical, Aerospace, Engineering, biotechnology, gaming industry, Television Commercials, Educational purpose, films and many more.

Why 3D Animation:-

3D animation is more realistic and exciting
3D models can be reused for future projects.
3D Animation is more popular among the audience
3D Animation requires more time
Other types of 3D Animation are:-

Stop-Motion
Clay Animation
Cel Animation
Paint-On-Glass Animation
In the year 1932, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented award for the first time to the Animated short called ‘Flowers and Trees’ directed by Burt Gillett and produced by Walt Disney Productions.

In India, Film ‘Roadside Romeo’ (2008) was the first 3D animated film, written and directed by Jugal Hansraj Television series ‘Captain Vyom’ had used first VFX and 3D Animation.

The ‘Annie Award’ is presented for excellence in the field of Animation.

Animation is used for entertainment purpose. Along with entertainment it is also an Art form appreciated in all over the world.

Along with Walt Disney, other studios like Pixar, DreamWorks are doing marvellous work in the field of Animation.

Come and enter the world of animation holding the hands of Maac Kolkata.

Frequently Used Software In VFX & CGI

In recent times VFX or Visual Effects are most advanced technology used in movies to give the scene a more realistic look.

Visual effects are formed by integration of live-action footage and computer generated imagery (CGI) for creating environments which look realistic.

Television commercials, Blockbuster movies, Video games or Online Videos depends heavily on visual effects that make a strong impression on a viewer.

The VFX shot has to have some CGI element in it. In the movie ‘AVATAR’ and ‘TINTIN’, ‘Tintin’ is fully CGI animated movie whereas ‘Avatar’ is not a fully CGI movie, it has CGI element in it, So it falls in the VFX category.

Interesting events can be recreated in the world of movies such as natural disasters, bomb blasts, flying objects, super heroes, volcanoes etc with the help of VFX.

VFX is done at the editing stage but planned at the pre-production and production stage under the guidance of the Director and VFX supervisor.

Software commonly used for creating Visual Effects are:-

3D Max– It is 3D Modelling, Rendering and Animation application.

The latest version 3D Max 9, offers new rendering capabilities, lighting simulation and analysis technology, additional time-saving animation and mapping workflow tools.

The three dimensional modelling objects can be made from assorted surfaces.

Artists work on Vertices which form surfaces when linked together.

Adobe After Effects– The use of this software is very common for creating Visual Effects.

It is used for motion graphics and compositing.

This software is convenient and offers variety of applications; it is ideal tool for film making and small productions groups.

Effects like Chroma Key, 3D camera tracker or Rotoscoping offers endless possibilities for software’s users who can add mesmerizing visual effects to their videos.

This software can be used on MAC and PC computers.

Autodesk Maya– It is an award winning software used in making of the movies like ‘The Matrix’, ‘Ice Age’ or ‘Avatar’ and others.

It has ‘node base’ framework.

All big VFX studios use this 3D modelling software and it is considered to be the industry standard.

Interactive grooming workflow, polygon or symmetry modelling and an extensive sculpting toolkit make Maya one of the best product on the market for professional 3D artists.

This software can work successfully with Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. Some of the best features of animations are included in Maya.

Cinema 4D– This software enables its users to create animations, perform rendering or texturing tasks and it offers a rich library of object presets, scenes and materials.

With sculpting tools, polygon and parametric modelling 3D artist can create their projects.

This application is used on professional level mainly for motion graphics.

This software is easy to use and permit direct exporting into After Effects which makes it preferred software amongst users of After Effects.

One has to contact a licensed distributor in order to purchase the Cinema 4D software. For architects and designers Cinema 4D Visualize is a solution and for Graphic designers Cinema 4D Prime.

Splines help to create complex 3D objects and deformers allow twist or compress without the change in Geometry.

Houdini–

It is a 3D animation and special effects application developed by Side Effects Software, 25 year old company based out of Toronto.

It is designed for artists working in 3D animation and VFX for films, T.V, Video games and Virtual Reality.

This software offers a complete solution for rigging and animating characters and creatures.

The tools include Auto rigging, Muscle and Flesh, Pose Space deformation, Vellum cloth, hair and fur grooming tool and more.

This software has been used by major VFX companies such as Double Negative, ILM, Frame Store, Sony Pictures Image works and others.

Houdini is use in feature animation films like Frozen, Zootopia, Blue Sky Studios film Rio etc.

The Node-based procedural workflow helps to create more content in less time.

Motion Tracking– This software insert the computer graphics into Live-action footage with right position, scale, introduction and motion in respect to the captured objects in the shot. It helps in match moving.

Mocha– Mocha is a planar tracking and rotoscoping tool for visual effects and post-production.

This software has tools for wire removal, lens distortion correction, clean plate generation and mesh warping, to convey all-in-one VFX tool set.

This software is popular among effect artist and editors.

Nuke-Nuke is commonly used compositing software on big budget movies.

Professional VFX companies uses Nuke and Flame.

It helps in integration of 3D models and perfect for 3D compositing and environments.

It permits for deep compositing which indicates that users can work with ‘deep images’ containing numerous opacity or colour samples per pixel.

Nuke is used in the production of high quality visual effects in films like ‘Black Swan’ or ‘Avatar’ etc.

CGI– It is known as Computer Generated Imagery, anything that is created digitally within the computers.

Many techniques have been researched and developed to produce highly focused computer-generated effects.

CGI Software has allowed individual artists and small companies to produce professional grade films, games and fine art from their home computers.

Matte Painting–

The technique of creating background environment by painting in a computer is Matte painting. A great artist can create the mountains, clouds, sky into real life like image in a computer.

The Tablet and pen is an important tool for matte painting artists.

Motion Graphics– Adding shapes, text, logos and animation to a presentations or videos is motion graphics. For example adding name of the interviewee during a documentary is motion graphics.

Blender– For Beginners, Blender is the right program to start career in animation and 3D Modelling.

It supports function required to create 3D concepts like modelling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking along with video editing.

3D models can be created with 3D painting with texture brushes and masking. One need to invest time to understand the working of the tools completely.

ZBrush– This software create 3D printed version of the artwork.

It is very popular among 3D printing artists.

ZBrush is used as a ‘sculpting’ tool, it helps to add greater details in the 3D modelling.

2Dimentional CGI software are:- Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop (for drawing and manipulating image) Coral draw, Auto CAD and Adobe Flash.

Hope you all liked our blog share your valuable coments.

Best Five Animation Movies Of 2018

What fabulous Movies are being made today with computer animation!

Animated movies are not restricted to kids anymore, they have won the hearts of adults successfully.

Animation has become one of the important film Genre today.

Studios like Disney, Pixar, Dream Works are constantly delivering amazing animated films.

Animated Movies of 2018 are Ralph Breaks the Internet, Peter Rabbit, The Grinch, Incredibles 2, Smallfoot, Isle of Dog, Hotel Transylvania, Spider –Man: Into the spider Verse and the list goes on.

Let’s have a look on the Five-Best Animation Movies of the year 2018.

The Grinch is a Computer Animated Christmas Comedy film produced by Illumination Entertainment, based on Dr. Seuss book ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas!’ (1957).

Directed by Yarrow Cheney and Scott Mosier, the storyline of the film follows the Grinch who plans to destroy Whoville’s Christmas celebration by stealing all the town’s decorations and gifts.

Grinch’s pet dog Max just wants him to be happy, Fred the large reindeer joins them and Cindy Lou Who represents innocent Joy.

The story moves between bright colourful town of Whoville and The Grinch’s cold huge mountain hole.

Filmmakers depended on the illustrations from the book to design houses of Whoville.

Its a colourful, beautifully designed animated film that captures the distinctive, whimsical look of the book.

‘The Grinch’ was made using Autodesk Maya.

It was created in France by Illumination Mac Guff, which is an Animated feature production Company.

It grossed over $422 million worldwide.

Incredibles 2 is an animated superhero film directed by Brad Bird, produced by Pixar Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures.

Incredibles 2 is about Parr family Superheroes who try to return public’s trust in Superheroes while balancing their family life.

In the Parr family included Helen Parr known as the Elastigirl in the superworld, has the ability to stretch her body into many shapes and form. Bob Parr or Mr. Incredible possesses super strength.

Daughter Violet Parr who can become invisible. Dashiell Parr, the family’s troublemaker first son, who has superhuman speed and Jack-Jack Parr, the infant son, who has mixed bag of power.

A team of experienced Animators were involved in this film. Ralph Eggleston is the Production Designer of the film.

This film is a continuation of ‘The Incredibles’ made in 2004. As Pixar no longer using same system from the first movie, all the characters had to be created from scratch on the computer.

The Pixar Studio used physically-based human eye models for the characters, even the eyes are larger and more stylized than in real humans.

Incredibles 2’s urban background increased the need for graphics and set design.

His film is nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the 76th Golden Globe Awards.

Ralph Breaks the Internet

Its a 3D computer-animated comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and Directed by Rich Moore and Phil Johnston.

It is the continuation of the film ‘Wreck-It Ralph’ made in 2012 as well as Disney’s 57th Feature-Length Film.

The film shows how people interact online.

Here Ralph and Vanellope (voiced by John C. Reilly and Sarah Silverman) decided to use Wi-Fi connection in Litwak’s shop to go the internet.

This film included highest number of characters, 434 individual characters with 6,752 variants.

Animators created endless buildings, signs, holograms and rendered them through the studio’s in-house rendering software Hyperion.

‘The balcony view of the city’ scene had over 100,000 individual elements.

The most tough part in the film was to bring life “BUZZTUBE”, a You Tube inspired website shaped like tall, cylindrical room piled top to bottom with video monitors, each playing a clip which had to be individually animated.

This film received Best Animation Feature nomination at the 76th Golden Globe Awards and 24th Critics’ Choice Awards.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider- Verse

This film is based on the Marvel Comics character Miles Morales or Spider-Man, produced by Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation.

Miles Morales becomes one of many Spider-Men and they team up to save New York City from fictional super-villain Kingpin.

Around 140 Animators completed the animation for the film, the largest crew ever used by Sony Pictures Animation for a film.

This film combined computer animation with traditional hand-drawn comic book techniques.

Computer Generated Imagery animation is combined with ‘line work and painting and dots and all sorts of comic book techniques.

This is attained by artists taking rendered frames from the CGI animators and working with them in 2D with the motive making every frame of the film ‘look like a comic panel’.

Animation lacked the Motion Blur, and instead of using animation principles like ‘squash and stretch’ substitute version was used.

This film was praised for its animation, characters, story, voice acting, humour and soundtrack.

It got nomination as Best Animated Feature at 76th Golden Globe Awards.

Hotel Transylvania3: Summer Vacation is a animated comedy film by Sony Pictures. Directed by Genndy Tartakovsky.

Its about a Dracula (voice of Adam Sandler), the proprietor of a Hotel Transylvania, falling in love with a ship captain named Ericka Van Helsing.

Mavis the vampire is worried about her dad Dracula and she thinks that he needs a break and she books a monster cruise for Dracula and his buddies.

It had Characters like Frankenstein, Wayne the Werewolf, Murray the Mummy, green blobby moster, Griffin the Invisible Man and Vlad.

Subplots in the film, focuses on the goodness of marriage and family.

The most challenging work for the animation team was to create massive sea monster Kraken character and creating the water effects and the destruction.

The film is packed with creative visual gags and weird creatures.

Previous two Hotel Transylvania films are about Mavis’s and Johnny’s marriage and the birth of their kid.

The sparkling production design and vibrant colours, easy flowing plot and familiar characters made the children happy.

This film was premiered at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival on June 1018 and released in United States on July 2018.

Sony Pictures Imageworks animation supervisor Alan Hawkins and VFX supervisor Michael Ford made effort to translate traditional cartoony-ness to high-end CG to create unique animated style.

Be a part of such massive projects by learning animation techniques only with Maac Kolkata.

Five Breathtaking Occupation For Graphic Designers

Graphic Design is the process of using images and texts to communicate information and ideas.

Graphic Designer is a professional person in Graphic Art Industry who combines images
and texts to create a piece of design.

Graphic Designers need to be up to date with the latest software and computer
Technologies.

Salary of a Graphic Designer is determined by the experience level and the company or studio where they are employed.

A Graphic Designer can choose any of these jobs as career option:

Web Designer

A Web Designer plays an important role in the development of a website by creating

pages, layout and graphics for web pages.

A Web Designer makes decisions about what content should be included on a web page, where to place graphics, text, navigation and makes sure continuity from one web page to the next.

Web Designers mostly depends on Hypertext and Hypermedia resources including

HTML, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and more web design tools. Cascading Style Sheets

(css) is used to create uniform style and colour scheme throughout an entire website.

The need for the talented Web Designers in multimedia industry has increased in the

recent years.

Web Designers are skilled in various higher-level programming languages that are used

to create scripts for the Web.

Web design has become an attractive business as more and more companies create Websites.

Animator

An Animator creates multiple images, known as frames, which give an illusion of movement when played in rapid succession.

Animators work in the field of Television, Movies and Commercials. Creating detail images frame by frame needs effort, skill and talent. Animators work on 2Dimensional or 3Dimensional Animation.

3D Animators job is to bring movement in the 3D objects, whereas 2D Animators sketches still images and gives them movement in X and Y Axis.

Lots of drawing, sketching, colour adjustment, painting and minute detailing is required in Animation.

Learning Animation is a long time process, so the Animator needs to be patient.

Animators see the world in a different way compare to average persons and they should study real life.

3D Animators work on the software like ‘Maya’ or 3D Max which is more complex than pencil and paper, Whereas 2D Animators work with software like ‘Flash’, ‘Photoshop’ and other.

An Animator needs to have good communication skills, so that he/she can convey ideas to the colleagues or clients.

To become a successful Animator lot of practice needed and one should have willingness to learn new things.

Art Director

An Art Director works with visual style and images in various fields of Media and Communication Industry such as advertising, book publishing, Film industry, Newspaper and Magazine.

An Art Director has to study Graphic Design, Photography and Drawing.

An Art Director in Movie or Theatre creates the set design, set props and each and every visual detail. He or She needs to understand the concept of the Producer or Director of the Movie. Art Directors work on the budget and time provided by the producers.

In Film Industry Art Director works directly below the Production Designer along with Set Designer and Set Decorator.

Art Directors can hire and remain responsible for Assistant Art Directors.

Art Directors work on Television dramas, commercials as well as films. I

n a big budget film, Art Director works 4-5 months before shooting starts.

They analyze the script to identify all props or special items required for the film.

Specially designed Apple Computers are favourite of all Art Directors.

In the Publishing house, Art Director manages the page Layout, Typography, design of the cover and illustrations.

In the field of Advertising, Art Director makes sure that their Client message and image is conveyed to the consumers.

The Art Director is responsible for the visual aspects and the copywriter is responsible for the textual content.

They work together as a Creative Team.

According to the study, demand for Art Director will continue to grow in the various Media Fields.

Game Designer

Increasing demand in video games like Play Station, Xbox 360, Computer Desktop gaming, Smartphone gaming Apps have expanded the field of Video Game Design.

The Game designer very much like the director of a film controls the artistic and technical part of the game.

A Game designer needs to be passionate about game, technical skills and creativity. Game designing is among the fastest growing careers in America.

Game Designers spend a lot of times in the virtual classroom for online students, who learn new skills to keep the Gaming Industry progressive.

In the past few years many well-known Universities, Colleges and Private Schools have added Video Game-related degree programs.

Game design degrees at various schools include game design, game development as well as computer science degree with specializations in game design.

One who wants to create Android Smartphone Games should learn programming language Java and Android OS, whereas game development for Apple iOS operating system requires Objective-C.

Game Designers will learn about animation, computer science and programming, advanced math or algebra.

The Game Designer will have to imagine the story plot and create interesting characters to keep the players motivated and challenged.

Packaging Designer

Each product comes to the market with proper packaging and in the packaging industry some person designs and creates the package.

A good Graphic designer can earn specialization in product packaging.

A Packaging Designer selects colours, illustrations, shapes for the packaging.

To learn about packaging, one needs to study Brand Development, Typography, Packaging Materials, Computer Graphics and Design.

Graduate programs are available if anyone wishes to gain a deeper knowledge of design, brand development, marketing and communications.

They spend a lot of time in communicating with their clients to get the clear picture of the clients demand.

Packaging Designer makes effort to create the packaging attractive, so that the consumer cannot ignore it and hence the selling of the product increases.

The colour, graphics and typography all affect the buying decisions of the consumers.

Packaging Designer promotes the product and helps to make the brand stand in the market.

Lots of opportunity awaiting for you hold hand of Maac Kolkata or Call us @9836321595.

Best Five Visual Effects Movies Of 2018

The process of creating and manipulating images out of the context of a live action shot in

film making is called Visual Effects or VFX.

In VFX, Live-action Footage and Computer Generated Imagery together create environment which looks real.

The VFX action Movies have succeeded in winning the heart of the Audience.

Let’s discuss about five best VFX movies of 2018.

Rampage is an American Science fiction monster film directed by Brad Peyton, Closely based on the Video game series of the same name by Midway Games.

It Stars Dwayne Johnson as Davis Okoye who teams up with George, an Albino Gorilla who turns into huge size as a result of rogue experiment, to stop two other mutated animals, a grey wolf and a crocodile from destroying Chicago.

Weta Digital Studio handled majority of Rampage’s Visual Effects.

Erik Winquist and crew members travelled to Chicago to create Chicago Loop by studying building materials and architectures styles, which would destroy in the climax battle.

Around 15,000 photographs were taken with 3D scanners and motion cameras covered downtown Chicago.

For the building destruction, artists studied World Trade Centre Attacks.

Weta Digital worked on over 600 creature effects shots.

Weta team included part of Jason Liles (performance-capture actor) face into the design of George, so that George’s eyes look like Jason’s eyes and George’s expressions are Jason’s expressions too. Prosthetics to extend forearms for walking shots were used.

The animators had to portray the creatures leaping and falling as believable as possible.

But Compared to George, no motion capture for Ralph and Lizzie.

Ralph and Lizzie are fully Key-frames animated by Weta Digital character animators.

Actors interacted with Computer generated monsters, big slabs of falling steel, glass and concrete as realistic as possible.

This film was released in United States on April 13 by Warner Bros. Pictures.

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is a fantasy adventure film directed by Lasse Hallstrom and Joe Johnston, released by Walt Disney Pictures.

It’s about a young girl Clara who receives a locked handcrafted egg-shaped box from her deceased mother and sets out in a magical land to retrieve the key.

Max Wood is the VFX supervisor and Richard Clegg is MPC (Moving Picture Company) VFX supervisor of this film.

MPC’s artists crafted more than 1,000 shots for this film.

Digital characters, Palaces, Forests, Rivers were computer generated.

Moving Picture Company created 101 CG (Computer Generated) images and distributed them into: majestic Russian-influenced palace, realms of snow, flowers and sweets.

For the Fourth Realms artist created clowns, army of tin soldiers, a giant mother ginger mechanical puppet, Mouse King and other animals.

VFX team worked hard to create nine-foot-tall Mouse King made up of thousands of mice.

MPC’s artists maintained balance between anthropomorphism and natural mouse behaviour to maintain the appearance of Mouserinks (Hero mouse) in the film.

The film has grossed over $166 million worldwide, against production budget of over $120 million.

Pacific Rim: Uprising.

It is a Science fiction film directed by Steven S.

The storyline is about Giant Monsters fighting against Giant Robots.

This film is a continuation of the film Pacific Rim made in the year 2013.

Double Negative, Atomic Fiction, Territory Studio, Weta Digital, and ILM worked on Visual effects of the film.

Visual effects studios produced 1600 VFX shots including newly designed Jaegers and Kaiju monsters as well as big number of robot-monster battles and environmental destruction.

Peter Chiang is the overall VFX supervisor and Matthew Plummer is VFX Producer for the Movie. Territory Studio worked closely with DNEG (Double Negative) to bring the man-machine interactions to life.

Weta Digital’s creative team designed highly technical pilot suits and helmets for Kaiju Monsters.

Motion Capture (Mo-Cap) is playing a vital role in the visual effects industry as it helps to animate any characters easily and the result is more lifelike rather than creating frame by frame animation.

Avengers: Infinity War film is based on Marvel Comics superhero team Avengers, produced by Marvel Studios.

Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures.

There were 2680 VFX shots in this film and Dan Deleeuw lead as over all VFX Supervisor for the movie.

The team of Digital Domain used Autodesk Maya for modelling, side effects Houdini for effects, Maya plug-in called Atomic for lighting and new Masquerade tool and their custom Direct Drive for transferring motion capture to the CG Character.

Weta Digital created 12-foot tall purple villain for Titan sequence.

The Battle sequence in New York city street has characters like Iron Man, Spider Man, Hulk, Wong and Doctor Strange.

Weta Digital and Digital Domain both worked on the look development of Thanos, Josh Brolin wore motion capture outfits to play the villain Thanos.

Weta digital handled fight scenes between Thanos and Dr Strange on Titan.

Double Negative studio created motion capture for many shots using Moven Suit.

This is the first superhero film to gross over $ 2 billion worldwide and breaking the box office records of 2018.

2.0 is a Science-Fiction action Tamil Language film written and directed by S. Shankar.

Rajnikanth, Akshay Kumar and Amy Jackson played the main role.

The story is about conflict between Chitti (humanoid robot) and Pakshi Rajan or Birdman (a larger than life Super-villain) who wants to take revenge on cell phone users to prevent decline of bird population.

Amy Jackson played Nila, a feminine humanoid robot.

Virtual camera is used. Digital sets were created

Srinivas Mohan supervised visual effects. Visual effects specialists John Hughes and Walt Jones also contributed in creating enormous city and enormous character.

Legacy Effects constructed prosthetic makeup and animatronics. Scenes were shot at EVP Film City Studios and other places.

This film contains about 1,000 visual effects shots and the CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) completed in different effects studios.

The film finally released in cinemas on 29 November 2018.

Action Scenes were shot during the month of April in Delhi with cinematographer Nirav Shah using Helicams to capture scenes with lead actors.

The soundtrack of this film is composed by A.R Rahman.

Enter the world of visual effects holding the hands of Maac Kolkata or call us @9836321595

Lift Off Film Festival Our Moment Of Pride With MAAC Chowringhee

We take immense pride in stating that our 3d animated short film “Gulaal” by student of MAAC Chowringhee has been shortlisted and nominated at Lift-Off Film Festival, UK.

Lift-Off Film festival, London came into being in 2010 inviting entries from all over the globe.

The initial response itself was overwhelming in quantity as well as quality.

The creation of the London Lift-Off Film Festival was led by the need to showcase the exceptional talents hidden behind the global indie films.

In it’s first year itself it received around 750 films across globe, outstanding both in quality and ambition.

From a small cinema in North West London, to the prestigious and beautiful screening rooms of Soho and West London — London Lift-Off has entertained and stunned audiences by continuously delivering on it’s platform exceptional work coupled with amazing networking and brilliant press coverage.

All of the awards are decided on audience choice and our winners get to potentially enjoy full official selections at every-single subsequent Lift-Off Film Festival around the world.

MAAC Chowringhee short film by students getting nominated for the same is a matter of great pride for us.

For a sneak peek on the whole movie making process and experience, let us take you on a short trip to behind the scenes of the said short film with MAAC Chowringhee.

The idea of the same sprung from the theme that was given for the 24 FPS international Awards, 2018.

MAAC Chowringhee participated in the same with a team of 15 students, who were all selected through a process of tests.

With the team complete towards the end of May, 2018; the story development kicked off as all the students went through several brain storming session to come up with story ideas conforming to the theme.

Going back and forth with minor changes with the script we finally locked the story in place and thus, entered a new phase of character and environment design.

The character design was a tedious process that MAAC Chowringhee students went through starting with scrounging for reference and then chalk out a base design.

Which then went through close scrutiny, feedback and multiple levels of improvisations to reach the stage of finalization.

The same procedure was adopted for all the characters.

Till the end of July,2018 we were done with the designing process and ready to jump into 3d to build the whole movie.

Running parallel to the whole designing process was the storyboarding process.

Here a small group of students were being busy bees figuring out how the story is going to look through a camera.

MAAC Chowringhee students were busy in drawing and then redrawing all the shot angles, layouts and setting compositions.

The shots were then tested in 3d and made out into a small animatics, which was to serve as the basic animation reference for the entire movie.

With the basic animatics reference almost ready we took the plunge into 3d.

The software choice for the process was Autodesk Maya.

The students who were responsible for modeling started with the blocking process working their way one detail level at a time to develop the overall look of the model as true to the design sheet as possible.

Likewise, the environment was also being developed to suit the requirements of the design.

The mentors at MAAC Chowringhee were constantly guiding the students through valuable feedback to come up with the final models, which seemed to do justice to the initial design, although a few liberties were taken here and there to enhance the character’s design.

Closely after the finalization of the models, texturing and rigging processes started simultaneously.

Substance painter was chosen as the go to software for the look and feel development of the textures.

September had kicked in till we entered this stage.

The students and the mentors had gotten a hang of the process till then and were able to work smoothly through it.

With the textures coming along and changing the overall look of the scenes, it really was started to feel alive.

As, for the rigging, it was coming along fast enough and we had decided for a stylized expression of the main characters, using a 2d style.

Somehow, the rigging process seemed to take longer than anticipated especially with skinning.

On the hand scene compilation with the necessary assets according to shot division started.

The necessary camera angles and the layout of the asset as per the storyboard was being done to maintain a seamless file management.

The files were being readied for the upcoming animation phase.

With everything set in place animation was started as soon as the rigging finished one character at a time.

MAAC Chowringhee student team prioritized the character rig requirement as per the number of scenes it was in.

November was already round the corner, till then and we realized the urgency of the situation.

The process picked up pace as soon as this realization dawned on us.

The animated scenes thoroughly checked and corrected were immediately set for lighting and rendering, which easily was the most time consuming phase.

Each scene was broken down into various required elements to facilitate the upcoming compositing process.

It was like all three processes of skinning, animation and lighting were going on simultaneously.

But the process could go on almost smoothly with the already done file management.

Well, that saved the hassle of working and reworking the wrong files, which is common in such scenarios.

Animation took some time as the rigging process finished and slowly lighting took over.

MAAC Chowringhee team tried to set up a basic light before the animation and then refine it once the animation was complete.

Meanwhile, rendering had already occupied quite a few machines leaving just enough to animation.

With the deadline of the 24FPS Animation awards looming in front of the student team, all MAAC Chowringhee student team could then was to wait for the machines to render the files before rushing to composition.

Soon enough, the rendered files became available and so, were the machines as animation reached it’s final stages.

Compositing seemed trivial in compared to the whole experience we lived these few months.

But, it was not to be taken lightly as the overall look depended heavily on how well the various elements were composed together.

Nonetheless, MAAC Chowringhee student team lived through it and the output was good.

Taking this as a good sign student zealously jumped into compositng as fast as they could and also as fast as the renders came out.

The mentors at MAAC Chowringhee, continuously suggested methods to speed up the process.

By end of November finally team managed to put it all together for the final submission.

The students and mentors alike heaved a sigh of relief as the time flew by so fast to even barely take notice.

MAAC Chowringhee student team were awarded with a Jury Special Mention Award at 24 FPS International Animation Awards, 2018 in recognition of the hard work we put in.


And now, are proudly nominated for the Lift-Off Film Festival London, 2019.

What a beautiful start of a new year could it be.

Inspired by the dedication and perseverance of MAAC Chowringhee students and faculties it is indeed a very proud moment for team MAAC Chowringhee.

Do share your comments and bless us with all your appreciations.

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