Difference Between Animation & VFX

In our today’s blog we will discuss the basic difference between Animation & VFX or Visual Effects.

In the rapid advancement of technology computer animation has been available to the masses and the animation industry has turned into one of the fastest growing industries.

Animation in simple words is the process of making the illusion of motion and illusion of change by means of rapid display of a series of pictures or images that minimally differ from each other.

It is a technique of photography. The Images or pictures are designed and drawn. Then layouts are made. The successive images are photographed in such a sequence that it creates an illusion of movement.

The Cartoons on television is an example of animation.

Animation on computers is one of the main ingredients of multimedia presentations.

There are much software applications that enable us to create animations that one can display on a computer monitor.

To display animation, a digital camera, computer, or projector are used along with new technologies that are produced.

Animations can be recorded or stored in various equipment and formats. Some recording would be flip books, video tapes, motion picture movies or on digital media. Some of the formats on which animations can be stored are digital video or flash animations.

There are several techniques for making an animation. They are as follows:

Traditional Animation: It is sometimes referred to as Cel Animation. It is one of the oldest forms of animation. Here the images are drawn on a transparent piece of paper fitted on a page using a colored Timing is an extremely important factor in traditional animation.

Since one has to fit the frames with the sound-tracks perfectly, the process becomes lengthy and costly.

Some movies made with Traditional Animation are Snow White and the seven dwarfs, Beauty and the Beast, One thousand and one Dalmatian.

2D Animation: It is a type of animation created in a two dimensional context.  2D animation doesn’t employ any fancy digital model or virtual space, opting for a more straightforward approach.
Some movies created by 2D animation are The Lion King, Aladdin, and Jungle Book.

3D Animation: 3D animation is a process that involves taking fully 3D objects (whether they are physical or digital) and making them animates and moves.
Most 3D animation today is done using CGI or computer-generated imagery. Some successful 3D movies are Avatar, Avengers, Toy Story, and Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Iron Man.
Stop motion animation: This animation technique physically manipulates an object so that it appears to move on its own. Some examples of movies with stop motion animation are Coralina, Fantastic Mr.Fox and Paranormal.
Computer Animation: Computer animationis a process by which animated images are generated. Some movies with computer animation are The Angry Birds Movie,Alpha and Omega, Alibaba,A Bug’s Life.A list of Softwares used in animation is as follows:

Blender
3D Studio Max
Mudbox
Maya
3D CAMERA PROJECTION & TRACKING
Light Wave 3D
V RAY
 VFX is Visual Effects. It is a way of mixing real life shooting with animated images.

Animation & VFX Maac Kolkata

Anything that is difficult to film in live action can be achieved using Visual effects.

Computer Generated Imagery or it is also popularly called CGI.

It is anything that is created digitally within the computer. Some movies where visual effects have been used are Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Jurassic Park, The Matrix, Tremors, and Life of Pi and many more.

Special effects such as a car chase or an explosion are made on set. Visual effects are primarily executed in Post-Production stage with the use of various tools and technologies.

The technologies are graphic design, modeling, animation and similar software.

A visual effects supervisor is generally involved with the production from an early stage. They need to work closely with production. The film’s director design, guide and lead the team involved to achieve the desired effects.

Visual effects may be divided into at least four categories:

Matte paintingsand stills– A matte painting is a painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows filmmakers to create the illusion of an environment that is not present at the filming location.

Historically, matte painters and film technicians have used various techniques to combine a matte-painted image with live-action footage.

Digital effects(commonly abbreviated as digital FX or FX) are the various processes by which imagery is created and/or manipulated with or from photographic assets.

Digital effects often involve the integration of still photography and computer-generated imagery (CGI) to create environments which look realistic but would be dangerous, costly, or impossible to capture in camera. FX is popularly used with the still photographer in contrast to visual effects which is associated with motion film production.

Techniques used in Visual Effects are Physical Simulators, Matte Painting, Rotoscoping , Green Screen, 3M Modeling.

Software’s used in VFX are:

After Effects- Adobe
Flame Auto Desk
Bou jou
3Ds Max
SILHOUETTE
Nuke
Smoke
Maya
Mocha
Professionals associated with the Animation industry are well in demand. Rapidly the technology is witnessing growth and gradually becoming more advanced. As a result the demand for content is growing. Job market is opening up for animation professionals.

There are various types of job associated to this industry. Like film production studios need skilled animators. Whereas the gaming industry look for animators who can help with concepts.

Modelers and Animators are the most commonly found profiles in which recruiter hires for companies. But there main demand is always looking for skilled and, talented people in the field. Riggers or technical artists are higher in the demand scale.

Professionals associated with the Visual effects require some basic formal education. They require having technical software skills to create designs. The VFX artists create computer generated animations and special effects. Specific technical knowledge is very important to get entry into this industry.

Visual Effect Treat Disney’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’

Visual Effect treat and the live-action remake of the animated Disney classic Beauty and the beast opens in the theater hall all across with a record-setting opening, making the movie the seventh-largest domestic opening of all time.

Disney’s Beauty and the Beast has hit the market with a roar actually a roar indeed.

Taking in $170 million domestically, Beauty and the Beast has actually had  topped the previous year March month opening  which had recorded of $166 million  Us dollar set by Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice .

It has also proved to be the  seventh largest opening weekend ever, ahead of the $169.1 million opening from the popular movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.

Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” is a live-action re-telling of the studio’s animated classic which refashions the classic characters from the tale as old as time for a contemporary audience, staying true to the original music while updating the score with several new songs.

“Beauty and the Beast” is the fantastic journey of Belle, a bright, beautiful and independent young woman who is taken prisoner by a beast in his castle.

Despite her fears, she befriends the castle’s enchanted staff and learns to look beyond the Beast’s hideous exterior and realize the kind heart and soul of the true Prince within.

The film stars: Emma Watson as Belle; Dan Stevens as the Beast; Luke Evans as Gaston.

The sheer dexterity is overwhelming, and only the sternest viewer will be able to resist the onslaught of such thoroughly marketed magic.

Disney has indeed ripped a jewel out of its casing and set it in something far more elaborate; the effect is garish rather than nostalgic, frustrating rather than memorable.

Though it may come with much familiarity and not much tweaking in its story, the film is still a magical tale that rekindles the classical aura of the Disney original animation.

Beauty and the Beast shines with its immense star power, dazzling visuals and infectious tunes that refreshes a tale as old as time for new and old audiences.

This is a live-action remake of Disney’s classic love story. ‘Beauty lies within’ is what an enchantress expects a vain and arrogant prince (Dan Stevens) to know.

He learns it the hard way when her curse turns him into a terrifying beast. Her spell can only be broken if he finds true love. Meanwhile, Belle (Emma Watson), the non-conforming daughter of a village inventor and artist, seeks an adventure. She stumbles upon the beast and magic unfolds…
The special effects, sound, costumes, voice-overs, songs – overall production values are first-rate.

The movie  make us  live the fairy-tale once again since it takes  us to the castle along with Belle, experiencing her new unfold adventure.

The movie depiction of eternal love between Watson and mo-cap Stevens.

It’s become awe-inspiring to view the overall visual excellence and grandeur of this spectacular production. It is actually a visual effect treat to our eye.

While story-wise it stays true to the original animated film, the execution is a lot darker, grimmer.
The beast gets a terrifying CGI makeover with Stevens rendering a decent motion-capture memorable performance.

Watson plays the feminist heroine with conviction.

While we like this feisty protagonist, her slightly modified character lacks a certain amount of compassion, making her seem a tad conceited more than confident.

Luke Evans is equally impressive as the self-obsessed, hare-brained Romeo.

What essentially works for ‘Beauty and the Beast’ is its relevance. The sets the grandeur the visual effect shorts makes it  a brilliant movie to watch.

It stands out because no matter how old the tale, it holds significance especially today, when smart phones and selfies have turned us all into beauty loving beasts.

The special effects, sound, costumes, voice-overs, songs – overall production values are first-rate.

Its a live the fairy-tale which will transported you to the castle along with Belle, experiencing her adventure.

With the amount of visual effect use that we get to see in the movie actually opens up the door of aspirant visual effect artist to acquire the set skills and being apart of such a project.

The popularity of visual effect is growing moves are actually being made and liked since we are giving such Visual effect treat to our viewers.

How Star Trek Created Visual Effects History

Star Trek remains one of the most popular and widespread television & movie network until date.

Generations have grownup up observing this mind blowing intergalactic science fiction.

Besides the story, performances, and picturization of characters, its quality is basically as a result of its mind-blowing visual effects.

In fact, it might not be wrong to mention that Star Trek created visual effects history.

With the release of Star Trek Beyond lets take a  look at how this popular series created VFX history in #Throwback Thursday.

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Nineteen Sixties wasn’t that technologically advanced era.

However, that didn’t stop writers & production studios from writing or producing.

Even at that time they do have the concepts of visual effects.

However this was the era of miniatures, matte paintings on glass & optical compositing on real film.

And it all began with Star Trek: The initial Series.

The quality of visual effects shots within the show created its own landmark in visual effects innovation.

Howard Anderson Company was the primary visual effects studio which single handle produced some mind blowing visual effects of its time.
The studio created the transporter – the teleportation machine which has been utilized by the crew members.

This remains the foremost vital addition to the series until date because it became a vital part of the Star Trek Universe.

Once it had been first created, the art movement impact was achieved with nothing over aluminium powder and optical compositing.


How did it work, you  just ought to ask? The people or props being transported were filmed keep it in the same position.

The beam impact was created by dropping aluminium powder from a height, and cinematography was done one by one with intensive lighting.

All of this was combined with the outline of the person or people together create an effort of the empty set, and faded out or in to make the appearance/ disappearance impact.

Pixar Association

The Genesis Demo from Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan is taken into account to be the primary use of visual effects during the feature film.

The lesser known truth is that this sequence was created by Lucas film Computer Division (which is popularly evolved into present day Pixar), the wing of George Lucas’s Lucas film established to analysis varied digital written material, computer graphics, various camera work applications etc.
Much before Toy Story, the Genesis sequence used computer graphics technique, and this was actually a great deal.



Alvy Ray Smith, who directed the sequence, was assured that they might convert their imagination to reality, and designed the piece as per their strengths at the time.

They effectively utilized geometric patterns, particle systems, texture mapping, bump mapping, digital painting, and a moving camera to bring the sequence to life, and eventually have been able to create a history.

The first demo was a 67-second long shot of a torpedo hit the earth, exploding, inflicting a shockwave which gradually evolved a Earth-like structures .

It had been rendered on VAX computers which is much faster than the earlier computers where with some frames took simply 5 minutes to render whereas earlier needed up to 5 hours.
Visual Effects on television Changed forever
Before the Nineteen Eighties & Nineteen Nineties, most television shows were shot on film, and visual effects which were primarily created with miniatures & optical compositing.



Star Trek: Next Generation (1987) modified everything.

It had been shot on film. However the footage was then transferred to video tape. As the series continuing, digital tape formats were used.

This enabled video-based visual effects to be created.

This became the rage thanks to only one factor – and that is speed.

Video tape footage created visual effects & special effects tricks  quicker & more practical.

It gave a path breaking result as each of the episodes had up to sixty – seventy VFX shots, an oversized range at that point of time.

During this era, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine series entered into the production, which required a quicker & larger execution of visual effects.

But all visual effects were still not done on video, and use of miniatures continued. Space vehicle space crafts, models were still physically engineered & recorded.

However, advancement came with the utilization of ultraviolet illumination black lights on fluorescent orange screens (instead of blue screens) for ship matte passes.

This was a significant breakthrough as compared to the previous methodology of use 8X4 foam core boards to make distinction round the ship.



Slowly, the studios touched towards incorporating complete computer-generated versions of the spacecrafts and different parts that were earlier created as miniatures.

Another vital development was the utilization of digital disk recorders. True, it’s going to not sound terribly exciting nowadays, however in the past this allowed the team to juggle layers of parts with out any degradation.

J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek Creates History

J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek film series is thought for its use of lens flares, from the Enterprise passing ahead of a sun or star to once the ship’s lights area unit visible because it whizzes past camera.

However once Abram first came up with the thought, it had been with the intention of reproducing the movement of sunshine within the planet.

In fact, several flares seen within the film were merely created and captured on set.

They were later enhanced by the utilization of anamorphic lenses that provided the ultimate image.
But this idea led to the creation of SunSpot, a tool to duplicate this flare within the digital world.

Since plenty of scenes were digital creations by Industrial lightweight & Magic, this device was developed so they might replicate the live-action look of lens flare aberrations in digital kind.

In the world of contemporary visual effects, the lens flares might not appear as if a technical revolution.

However they served a crucial role in storytelling.

Tod Vaziri, one of the artists who worked on the lens flare, believes that these flares gave the films their distinctive flavour of spontaneousness & intensity in the story telling effect.

Giving overall documentary-style feel, implemented in fantastic, different worldly, abstract quality.

Old Wine In New Bottle
The one visual effect that Star Trek brought to the screen live, not just for its own series however the complete realm of science-fiction, is warp in speed.

This faster-than-light propulsion permits the spaceships to manoeuvre at infinite speed. Over time, advances in style, camera work, visual effect & compositing techniques have created warp speed a additional life-like, immersive, & spectacular visual impact.



In the latest movie, Star Trek: Beyond, the warp speed impact evolved even additional.

The film’s visual effects supervisor Peter Chiang created a warp bubble, rather than the previous streak-type look.

The visual effects impact in the studio behind this effect was Double Negative which had previously created the black hole & worm hole effects for Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar.



Will they continue to boldly go where they have never gone before? Will we be able to see more fantastic evolution in visual effect that the time will say?

5 Top Job Opportunities For A Visual Designer

In our today’s blog we will be discussing about the  job opportunities a visual designer gets in the job scenario.

Visual designers are the problem solvers of the design world surprised to know how? They actually bring life to a brand. And they play a key role in defining what goes into a brand’s unique stylization.

In addition to creating beautiful designs, they know how to explain design concepts and

the decisions behind their work.It is important for the visual designer to understand there user interface, and web designing. Its not required for them to know coding.

Visual designers rarely work on print products, but they do need a strong understanding of graphic design, identity design, and branding. They need to have exceptional visual messaging and communications skills, too.

They work primarily with web layouts and deliverable, including things like icons, info-graphics, logos, and presentations.

When its come to the scope they do have immense scope of jobs available in the market. We will discuss 5 such great opportunities ones get working as a visual designer.

Advertising Agencies

As a visual designer one has to visualize and style a particular product to reach its target market. So Advertising agency is the platform where a visualize and explore his or her talent to its fullest. In India there is so many advertising agency running who is hiring visual designer. So growth opportunity is immense with advertising agencies’.

Multimedia Creative Person

A transmission creative person performs a similar task as a visible designer. He/ she specializes in camera work across all mediums like television, movies, games, and video. With the employment of specialized laptop software system, the artists style sketches of scenes, pictures and animation.



Video Game Developers

 Another interesting sector that opens is one can work as video game developer. Working at a game company is taken into account is actually a treat for many designers. Game corporations now a days are renting  visual designers to make the graphics for the games they’re creating or working on.

Editorial Designer

The print & business enterprise tend to hire visual designers to make fascinating layouts for magazines, newspapers & brochures. It’s a creative and interesting part since magazines need new cover attractive cover design every time. These designers, with editorial style skills, add collaboration with editors & photographers helps to make a selected look & feel of the magazine which comes out with an eye catching layout.

Art Director

This position could be a senior-level job. It involves perfect coordination with numerous groups understanding the need so to attain the ultimate visual output. Associate stage Director helps to produce an inspiration or an issue to figure with, and ensures mounted time lines & to get better output. In this profile the responsibility is more along with hefty remuneration as well.