India Is Growing Market For VFX Jobs Know How

July 22, 2019 - by animationkolkata - Leave a Comment

Hello reader, in the modern times we are quite familiar with the fact that VFX or Visual Effects have become an integral part of filmmaking process mainly in Hollywood Industry.

Today in this blog we will cover the topic India is growing market for VFX Jobs know how.

VFX Supervisors along with other artists give their best to deliver incredible VFX visuals with in the movies.

VFX is gaining popularity and has become the part of the movie script.

VFX industry in India is not lagging behind.

In India the mindset of the audience has changed due to the globalization; they are open to accept new innovative things in the area of entertainment.

Currently visual effect in India is making its presence felt in films of all genres be it action, comedy or romance irrespective of small or big budget movies.

India Has Rich Contents For Movies

VFX industry has bright future in this land of epic mythological stories.

More and more filmmakers are looking for high end fantasies and Indian mythology has lot of fantasies to offer.

The success of 85 crore visual effect packed epic action film Baahubali has proved that visualization of fantasy is more important thing in movies and Indian audiences are enjoying the visual effects.

According to Kotha Basi Reddy who owns VFX Studio Digiquest in India and contributed in many movies including Baahubali, Magadheera, Eega etc “Indian mythology has so much of science-fiction like Ravana flying on a plane and taking Sita with him.”

Kotha Basi Reddy believes that if filmmakers make movies based on Indian mythology with visual effect; the whole world would watch them.

Indian filmmakers have the ability to make VFX rich movies as lot of international projects on VFX are already done here.

The visual effectpart of the movie Life of Pi was done in Hyderabad based Studio.

Mr. Reddy believes that with the quick and easy available digital medium young talents are working on contents which will be internationally acceptable and there will be no song and dance based movies any more.

Independent Indian filmmakers are showing their talents through visual effect rich short films which are getting million hits from all over the world.

VFX-Rich Bollywood Films

In the recent past few year Indian audiences have already experienced some high budget VFX rich expensive Bollywood movies such as Krrish 3, Ra. One, 2.0 etc.

The year 2018 was the biggest year for Indian visual effect industry as it offered huge experiential viewing for the audience with the movies like Rajnikanth’s 2.0, Shah Rukh Khan’s Zero and Aamir Khan’s Thugs of Hindustan.

In movie Zero actor Shah Rukh Khan was reduced to 1.5 feet shorter on the screen and this difference in height was made possible through the hard work of visual effect studio Red Chillies.

Over rupees 70 crore was spent on visual effects of this film which had 5,000 visual effect shots.

Various artists from the different field of expertise worked on the visual content of this film.

Director Shankar’s 2.0 film was India’s first $75 million VFX wonder movie.

South Indian Film Industry is giving tough competition with the Bollywood in terms of VFX.

Through a very recent 2019 film Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi audience experienced a well crafted VFX film which had 3,000 VFX shots.

VFX rich movies create job opportunities for the local talents.

Indian filmmakers also hire foreign expects to train local artists about the technology.

Reputed VFX Studios In India

Visual effects Industry in India has created a huge job market for the skilled youngster in the past few years.

Due to the latest technology and easily available equipment at affordable rate; many VFX studios have already earned names in the market for their incredible work.

Indian filmmakers have already understood the impact of VFX and they are doing their best to make the VFX interesting and appealing.

Producers are ready to pour investments in storyline with great possibilities of VFX.

According to Danny Wilson, Creative Supervisor at Lighthouse Animation Studios; “Currently India is well positioned in the global VFX industry”.

Studios like Makuta, Prana, Red Chillies, DQ Entertainment and many others are contributing a lot in the film, advertising as well as television contents.

A talented artist with the knowledge of visual effect can work in the industry as Texture Artist, Roto Artist, Lighting Artist and on various other positions.

In the entertainment industry VFX artist can work on freelance basis or full time basis and the salary scale is also quite good enough which increases with the experiences.

Visual effect industry is growing fast in India; local talents are working not only on the oversea projects but also on the various regional filmmaking industries.

Indian visual effect studios are expanding globally to meet the international projects and markets.

Studios are working on collaborations and providing breeding ground for the aspiring visual effect artists.

Other than the private companies and organizations; Indian government is also coming up with policies in support of the visual effect industry.

Government policies would enable the Indian visual effect industry to compete with established market of developed countries like US, Canada, France etc.

Job Prospects For VFX In India

VFX has the prospective to create huge employment opportunities in India.

With the coming of Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality visual effect in India will definitely grow in the coming years.

Augmented Reality or Virtual Reality contents require good amount of visual effect works like movies and televisions.

Moreover visual effect industry is a competitive market and to stand strong in this market the professionals has to develop the co-operative work culture.

The aspirant and the professionals should have the qualities of flexibility, commitments to meet the deadlines, ability to understand the demand of clients and good communication skill.

As Indian filmmakers are gearing up for the new project storyline; there will be new scope of work for the Visual effect  artists.

Therefore there is no looking back and the future of the visual effect artist is secure in India as long as demand for stunning visual contents will grow in the entertainment market.

Know more about Indian visual effect  market through us.

How To Make Your VFX Look Incredible With Pre-Visualization

Today through this blog we will see how to make VFX look incredible with Pre-Vis or Pre-Visualization.

Before making a movie the director needs to have clear visuals about the story in his/her mind.

Similarly to make final decisions about the VFX artists need to have a clear visual breakdown of the visual contents.

Actually Pre-Visualization is the process of visualizing the complex scenes in a movie before filming.

We know that storyboards provide a general look of each scene but Pre- Visualization indicates the scene that VFX artists need to have.

In case your film has lot of computer graphics and unique creatures then your filming will be within a background of blue or green screens.

But how your live actors will perform the way you want; it would be better if they could see the final version and here comes Pre- Visualization.

From mid-1990s digital Pre- Visualization became an essential tool in the big budget feature film.

Why Pre-Visualization For VFX Is Needed

Animated Pre- Visualization helps VFX Supervisors to improve and experiment on camera movements, lighting placement, staging and duration.

If virtual camera movement or action sequences are badly timed without Pre- Visualization then the film’s narration will miss the attention from the audience.

A good Pre- Visualization for VFX can differentiate between a good movie and a great movie.

A Pre- Visualization VFX Supervisor not only decides shots but the whole sequences, the camera angles, spacing, lenses and everything about a film.

Modern Pre- Visualization team uses computer animation to show the director’s choices in motion.

The Pre- Visualization starts at the pre-production stage and it provides entire cast and crew clear vision about how the actions would be during the shooting process.

Action sequences need to be choreographed and showcased in the form of Pre-Visualization animatics to the cast and crew before the shooting stage.

Pre-Visualization for VFX is usually created by 3D tool in virtual environment.

Pre-Visualization gives an opportunity to the director to look at his film being constructed in a virtual environment.

Pre- Visualization VFX artists make changes according to the wish of the director in the images.

A director can actually see their film’s storyline in the Pre-Visualization process.

Making Use Of Pre-Visualization In Movies

In the like Movie Rise of the Planet of Apes group of Pre- Visualization artists choreographed every shot featuring a digital ape; VFX artists created rough version of the complex shots.

Pre-visualization VFX artists created about 1500 shots for Pre-Vis with 50 artists working on different stages for this movie of Ape.

In case of this movie static storyboard failed to convey enough description because it had too much action.

Pre-Visualization animatics of Apes gave clear idea about the director’s vision to the VFX artists from focal length to lighting.

Why Pre-Visualization For VFX Is Needed

Animated Pre-Visualization helps VFX Supervisors to improve and experiment on camera movements, lighting placement, staging and duration.

If virtual camera movement or action sequences are badly timed without Pre-Visualization then the film’s narration will miss the attention from the audience.

A good Pre-Visualization for VFX can differentiate between a good movie and a great movie.

A Pre-Visualization VFX Supervisor not only decides shots but the whole sequences, the camera angles, spacing, lenses and everything about a film.

Modern Pre-Visualization team uses computer animation to show the director’s choices in motion.

The Pre-Visualization starts at the pre-production stage and it provides entire cast and crew clear vision about how the actions would be during the shooting process.

Action sequences need to be choreographed and showcased in the form of Pre-Vis animatics to the cast and crew before the shooting stage.

Pre-Visualization for VFX is usually created by 3D tool in virtual environment.

Pre-Visualization gives an opportunity to the director to look at his film being constructed in a virtual environment.

Pre-Visualization VFX artists make changes according to the wish of the director in the images.

A director can actually see their film’s storyline in the Pre- Visualization process.

For the above bridge shot computer generated Pre-Visualization was done on detail measurements, compositions and camera positions by Weta Digital’s previs VFX artists.

VFX artists used software like Maya and After Effects to create the Pre-Visualization of the shots.

Artists decided about camera angles, shot durations, focus point while working on pre-visualization.

In Pre-Visualization for VFX artists can handle digital cameras, colour, texture, characters and lot more elements to create stunning visual contents.

Pre-Visualization process also empowers the editor with the footage that they need to make the movie as stylised as possible.

The above Pre- Visualization image is from Robert Stromberg’s directed movie Maleficent.

Maleficent’s Pre-Visualization was handled by VFX Company The Third Floor and Supervised by Mark Nelson.

Pre-Visualization Supervisor Mark Nelson said in one of his interview that “We replaced creatures with various designs four or five times throughout the Pre- Visualization process and that is the kind of job during Pre- Visualization.”

Film Maleficent had 1,200 Pre-Vis shots and 30 different sequences.

Pre-Visualization may look like simple grey shapes with characters or it may look like sophisticated stunning video games.

Laurent Lavig did the Pre-Vis for the movie Matrix Reloaded.

In case of Matrix Reloaded Pre-Vis artists worked on set planning, stunt planning, shoot planning and VFX layout.

Pre- Visualization artist may add temporary music and dialogues into the edited rough version of the complex shots.

Pre-Visualization had been used in movies like Matrix Trilogy, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, X-Men and others.

Best Software For Pre-Visualization VFX

In case of complex VFX scenes, Pre-Vis has to be successful.

One can find great Pre-Visualization resources out in the market.

For big movie project director hires VFX Company to do the Pre-Vis.

But in case you are not in a position to hire Pre-Vis team then you can use Software like Lightwave 3D, Maya, Autodesk MotionBuilder, Softimage XSI which are commonly used for Pre-Vis.

Some artists also rely on less technically challenging 3D modelling and animation software like iClone, Real3d, Poser etc.

FrameForge 3D Studio is also the Pre-vis storyboard software widely used by VFX Supervisor.

FrameForge 3D Studio creates virtual sets, locations by using simulated cameras, actors and materials in the 3D environment.

With the help of Pre- Visualization software director along with VFX Supervisor can create the 3D animated sequences to analyse and measure the accuracy of the shooting material.

An outstanding Pre- Vis work can offer platform for more creativity and innovation in the VFX field.

Pre-Vis Saves Time And Money

Pre-Vis helps in communications process, when still storyboard fails to deliver the thoughts of the director to the production team at that time moving pre-visualization makes the concepts clear.

Many filmmakers are opting for Pre-Vis in the current scenario as it has great benefits.

Pre-Vis allows in selecting a shot through trial and error method and this saves time, directors get the planned and refined idea about what to shoot and this saves lot of time.

With Pre-Vis VFX artist can test out all the subtle camera options which could be quite impossible on the day of shooting.

Even Pre-Vis helps to cut out the unnecessary materials from the production stage; director can avoid the unnecessary props and save the money.

Pre-Visualization offers cheap and flexible test platform for experimentations.

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New Features VFX Artists Can Benefit From Premiere Pro CC 2019

Dear Aspirants, today in our blog we will give an overview on some of the new features of Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2019 that can benefit VFX artists.

Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2019 is the video editing software developed by Adobe Systems.

Adobe Premiere Pro CC is the successor of Adobe Premiere first launched in 1991.

The new version of Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2019 will mostly be used by professional media houses, film studios to edit audio/video visuals.

This editing software supports high resolution video images.

It helps to turn raw footage into stunning cinematic products.

Video, audio and graphics can be imported using this software to create new edited video which can be export to the other medium or format for distribution.

New Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2019 will be a great help to the VFX artists as it has been launched into the market with some advanced features.

Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2019 supports both Windows and Mac platform.

New Features In Premiere Pro CC 2019 For VFX Artists

More Native Support Cameras

This feature will provide to work with various clips from different sources, so more camera support is better.

New Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2019 will support footage imported directly from cameras such as Arri Amira Camera, Arri Alexa LF footage, Sony Cameras, High-Efficiency Image Format (HEIF)/HEIC Capture format used by iPhone 8 and iPhone X.

Visual Effects artist could gather many images and visual from camera sources to work.

More camera support feature will allow professionals to capture the raw footage from different types of digital cameras.

Once the footage will be captured into the Premiere Pro CC software then the professionals can work with different visuals.

VFX artist can import the 3D projects in the Premiere Pro CC through cameras which has been prepared on other software.

Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2019 provides built-in-support for Arri Amira Camera and now it will allow to import from Arri Alexa LF (large footage) file format, Sony Venice V2 and iPhones latest versions.

Additional Selective Grading Curves In Lumetri Colour

Colour adjustment is an important part of any visual content.

The Colour Grading option has additional selective Colour Grading Curves in Lumetri Colour.

VFX artist can work on colour improvement of the visuals easily with this new Colour Grading feature.

Visual Effects artist can even fine tune skin tones by working on Lumetri or Luminance/saturation Curve.

This feature also allows naming of various Lumetri Colour effects on a single clip.

Artists can get faster experience while working with Lumetri Colour Effect.

Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2019 allows the VFX artists to have more control over cinematic colour grade.

Consolidate Duplicates

In case of big movie project multiple VFX artists works on the same project file.

In that case there is a chance of importing multiple duplicate files of the same clip into the project bin of every VFX artist.

Hence VFX artist can remove the unnecessary duplicate copies with the Consolidate Duplicates Command.

This feature can save lot of time and will avoid frustrations in VFX artists while working on same project.

The VFX artist will simply have to select Edit>Consolidate Duplicates to remove duplicates from the project bin.

Grouping For Team Project

Collaborator Grouping is another feature that has been added to latest version of Adobe Premiere Pro CC for the benefit of VFX artist to work in a large team.

VFX artist can simply share their project with the group.

Team project simplifies the work with multiple team members in post-production stage.

Collaborator Grouping will allow editors, motion graphic artists, VFX artists to work together.

They can share sequences, compositions among themselves with this feature without the need of additional hardware.

One can easily invite or add or manage new team members.

Team member can work from anywhere and can easily link the media.

This new feature will help in the creation of multiple versions and collaborates on shared material.

Projects can be shared without overwriting someone else efforts.

VFX artist can share their visuals with the team through Collaborator Grouping and can rectify their work based on the team member’s suggestions.

Improved Auto-Saving Option

It happens many times that while working on a project, suddenly Premiere Pro crashes down and you don’t remember the last time when you saved your project file.

New auto-saving feature allows to automatically save the current primary .prproj file of your work.

Thus you can have much better chance of retaining your recent work in the original project file.

This setting is off by default, one can activate this option by simply clicking to Edit>Preferences>Auto-Save>Auto-Save also saves the current projects.

Once the Auto-Save is enabled, Premiere Pro CC will create a backup project file for all open projects along with current working project file.

For VFX artist auto-saving is a great help as VFX artist deals with heavy visual contents which need to be saved immediately otherwise they have to go through again creating complex visual effects for the scenes.

This feature will add another layer of protection against losing work.

Virtual Reality Enhancement

Adobe Premiere Pro CC has added ability to create 180/Virtual Reality video for Monoscopic and stereoscopic content.

This will allow VFX artists to see the 3D contents more effectively.

Artist can play the complete video in the Google VR180 format for YouTube or other platforms.

While wearing HMD (Head Mounted Display) one can place markers on the media which was impossible earlier.

In previous Premiere Pro version one had to remove headset to add markers.

Also improvement has been made to reduce crashes and speed up render times.

This is a great help for the VFX artist as their work needs lot of rendering time.

The latest version of Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2019 has lot of practical benefits that can make the work easier for the Premiere Pro users.

Aspirants and enthusiasts connect and learn with us the latest version of Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2019 .

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When To Use After Effects’s Roto Brush Tool

Today in this blog we will study about when After Effect’s Roto Brush Tool can be used.

Rotoscoping is a process of tracing and isolation objects within an image.

It is a laborious work because here one needs to create a matte for every individual frame.

To rotoscope one second of video, one would need to do 24 to 30 mattes depending on frames-per-second and each and every matte should match the movement of the isolating object.

Fortunately Adobe After Effects has come up with a wonderful Roto Brush Tool to make the task of rotoscoping easy and simple.

With the new Adobe After Effects Roto Brush Tool one can do many ventures.

Adobe After Effects Roto Brush Tool is very similar to Quick Selection Tool of Adobe Photoshop.

Roro Brush Tool will allow to brush over the area one would want to select, with easy roto brush tool one can add or remove from the selection.

But the difference is that with rotoscoping one is working on the abundance of images rather than one.

Application Of After Effects’s Roto Brush Tool

Adobe After Effects is a digital visual effects software developed by Adobe Systems.

It is widely used in post-production stage in filmmaking and television productions.

Roto Brush Tool is a tool which comes inside Adobe After Effects along with other tools.

Roto Brush Tool is a great help in case of visual effects and compositing.

The VFX artist can make use of this tool to the fullest.

Roto helps to create a matte that separate an object from its background and then one can change the background or can apply effects to the foreground.

Before working on rotoscoping; artist should study the footage carefully.

By studying the footage artist would be able to determine timeframe for the project.

Artist should have the clear view in mind about which section of the image he/she want to rotoscope.

Making A Selection With The Roto Brush Tool

Roto Brush Tool is used to draw line strokes on the indicative areas of the foreground and background elements.

After Effects uses the line strokes information to create a separate boundary between the foreground and background sections.

As Rotoscoping allows separating the subject from a background, it proves to be a great help when subject is not shot with green or blue screen; one can easily separate the subject using After Effects Roto Tool.

Once the subject is separate one can make adjustments to the subject like colour correction, changing the background, animated transitions and many more.

One of the main advantages of this After Effects Roto Brush Tool is that once a initial selection is made with the Roto Brush Tool .

After Effects will by itself introduce matte for the next 24 frames which will allow one to work at a sufficient pace of one second at a time.

After Effects makes use of each brush strokes to improve the results on nearby frames.

In case the subject changes shape from one frame to the next, the divided boundary created by the roto brush tool will adapts to match the subject.

To start with the Roto Brush Tool, first select the Roto brush tool then select the area and drag the brush tool to make selection.

Once the first selection is complete, it will serve you as base frame.

After Effects provides its users different view options to see the selection.

One can see the alpha option as black and white boundary or as a covering.

One can also see an X-ray view of edge selections.

Rotoscoping as VFX tool is used in almost every movie and television shows.

In case of feature film rotoscoping process may take hours or days to complete.

Rotoscoping is an art form so mastering it will need time, patience and skills.

Roto Brush Tool Used To Change Background

In the above picture we can see the effect of rotoscoping, in the right window box the subject is separated from the background by applying Roto brush tool.

On the left window box we can see the background image has been changed to more beautiful scenic view with sunset, clouds and trees.

The foreground subject is the same in both the pictures.

After Effects Roto Brush Tool has the ability to create complex curve lines.

Users can use Roto Brush Tool as a dragging brush tool.

The beginners can simply select the Roto Brush Tool in the toolbar and work to make the foreground bright or to darken the background.

This tool can also help to clone the people or to add text between components on screen or some other crazy visual effects.

Separating a very complicated shaped person or object with the help of Roto Tool could be very time consuming and tough job.

For example in case of two people fighting, it could be impossible to follow the actions of both the person correctly with one single selection outline.

After Effects Roto Brush Tool also allows the artist to fine-tune rotoscope in a simpler environment.

After making a rough selection through Roto Tool, Refine Edge Tool should be selected and applied.

Roto Brush And Refine Edge Tool

Refine Edge Tool is used to achieve a clean rotoscope along with Roto Brush Tool.

If the artist is not frequently rotoscoping the images then he/she can invest time in fine tuning the rotoscope image.

It is necessary for the VFX artist to learn the application of Roto Brush Tool and Refine Edge Tool so that he/she could work efficiently.

It is also necessary to select the motion blur in the Roto Brush Parameters, so that the edges can flow naturally if the subject has lot of motion.

After Effects Roto Brush Tool is a simple, fast and great option for clean VFX Rotoscoping rather than working on drawing and animating masks.

Previously Rotoscoping was a tedious work but now with the advent of users friendly software Rotoscoping has become fun and exciting.

Every VFX artist both professional and aspirant should learn this technique even if they are more interested to create the explosions effects.

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Creed II VFX Breakdown Brief Discussion

Today in this blog we will talk about the use of VFX in the American sports drama film Creed II directed by Steven Caple Jr.

Hollywood’s action packed movies are all time favourite to the audience all over the world.

Creed II is scripted by popular Hollywood action hero Sylvester Stallone along with Juel Taylor.

Creed II is the continuation of the previous Creed made in 2015.

It is the eighth part of the Rocky film series.

Creed II has stars like Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Dolph Lundgren etc.

Creed II is about Adonis Creed who returns to the boxing ring to take revenge of his father’s death.

VFX Treatment Of Creed II

Creed II featured Michael B. Jordan in the lead role as a talented boxer Adonis Creed and the son of world heavyweight champion Apollo Creed.

Adonis Creed’s trainer and mentor Sylvester Stallone prepares Adonis to fight against Viktor Drago a powerful athlete whose father Ivan Drago killed Adonis father in the ring 33 years back.

The 72 year old actor Sylvester Stallone’s return as Rocky Balboa into this movie is an exciting and interesting part for the fans of Stallone.

MGM or Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced this film which released in November 2018.

The VFX to this film has been provided by MR.X and Zero VFX companies.

MR.X, USA based VFX company provided total 311 VFX shots for Creed II.

As Studio MR.X has a long relationship with MGM; MR.X handled most of the VFX of the intense boxing matches.

Creed II’s storyline follows the boxing matches between Adonis Creed and Viktor.

As we all know that Chroma keying technique helps to add desired background later at the post-production stages.

Green Screen VFX tool was used in the stadium scenes to add the CGI background of multiple crowds.

VFX team removed the Green Screen at the post production stage and extended the stadium and inserted the crowds at different places of the stadium with the help of CGI.

VFX artists created the CGI crowd which were used at the back of the stadium where as the real crowd were used at the front of the stadium.

Under the guidance of VFX Supervisor Eric Robinson, Jo Hughes and Dean Wright, Creed II got its stunning visual effects.

VFX artist Crystal Dowd of Crafty Apes VFX Company also contributed in the process.

The film was shot at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and some scenes were filmed at Grey Towers Castle.

The final training montage of Adonis was shot in the desert of Deming, New Mexico.

Production team created outdoor set with heavy tyres, chains and water tanks.

Kramer Morgenthau captured best action shots for the film.

The Close-Ups and the Mid Shot of the boxers and their actions were captured in a thrilling way.

As a Cinematographer, Kramer Morgenthau shot the punches from many angles to highlight the dramatic part.

Crowd Simulation Visual Effects

Fighting scenes were shot in the fake boxing rings with Michael B. Jordan and Sylvester Stallone.

Stunning CG Stadium was crafted by Zero VFX Company.

VFX Supervisor Eric Robinson was on set to arrange all the key fight sequences.

VFX team worked till the last day of post –production to handle every details of the film.

As Eric Robinsonsaid in his interview that: “Boxing sequences are crafted to deliver fun, unique challenges.”

MR.X Company in Toronto and Bangalore delivered their best efforts in making of this film.

VFX On Connecting Boxing Punches

Team worked on the punch shots, with the help of VFX they made the boxing punch shot and the face more believable.

Facial expressions got the touch of the texture and colour through visual effects.

Actor’s spit and the sweat were highlighted with visual effects.

Before the shot actor took mouthful of water and then let the water loose during the shooting and in between to correct the flow of water VFX team added the specific tone to the water to make it visually prominent.

In fact artists did the colour grading and correction to the water droplets to make it look like blood for more impactful scene.

Another challenge was to keep the boxing match fresh and energetic as it had nine rounds.

The director planned new style for each round, so as to avoid repetitiveness.

It kept the audience in suspense as the fight occurred.

It was thrilling to watch Michael B. Jordan getting in to shape for the fighting scenes.

The director made the audience to feel every blow of the boxing punches through the visual treatments.

Director Steven Caple Jr. confessed that he watched many Karate films before making this film to learn the tension building methods and excitement in the boxing scenes.

He further said “Small moments in the film are important and they don’t have to do anything with the budget. Those moments are independent film in its own way”.

3D Lighting For The Stadium

Extra3d lighting was added with the help of visual effects surrounding the boxing rings.

3D software provided the Spot lights all around the boxing ring stage.

Zero VFX contributed in providing well-illuminated boxing ring surrounds.

Zero’s team of artists created ground-breaking illusions which served story.

Zero VFX team put life into the fighting scenes.

This film made a huge success due the great collaboration of the all team members.

VFX artists from different part of the world shared their expertise and knowledge to make Creed II best version of the film.

This film is all about honour and identity, power and heroism.

Creed II made a profit of over $213 million and received positive reviews from the critics worldwide.

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Use Of CGI Technique In Bollywood Movies

In today’s blog we will discuss about the use of CGI or Computer Generated Imagery in the Bollywood Movies.

How these CGI techniques provides larger-than-life experience to the audience.

There are many Bollywood Movies today which make use of CGI techniques.

With the advent of Computer Graphics in the year 1970s in Hollywood, Indian film industry also got influenced by computer generated techniques.

From the early 2D animated films, Bollywood industry has progressed to an age where video editing and CGI Software usage has become very approachable.

Indian animation industry has come a long way since the first Indian stop motion film by Dada Saheb Phalke about the growth of a peapod into a plant in 1941.

Movies like Indian and Enthiran pushed Indian Cinema to next level in VFX/ Computer Generated Imagery technology.

Implementation of CGI in Bollywood Movies

By the 1990s television shows like Captain Vyom and Captain House used CGI techniques.

VFX, sound effects, computer generated Imagery are used heavily in almost every film and film Industry is focussing on perfecting the technology and importing better resources.

With Hollywood collaboration, Indian production houses are coming up with Bollywood movies with excellent visual effects and CG images.

Love story 2050 (2008) directed by Harry Baweja is one of the early Bollywood Movie to use CGI techniques; it is a Science fiction-romance film.

It is Bollywood’s first futuristic film and had 1200 computer generated shots.

Along with main protagonists a robot played a major role in this film.

Four international firms contributed in creating CGI effects of this movie.

Among four special effects houses Weta Workshop located at New Zealand and John Cox of Brisbane, Australia won an Academy Award for their work on International projects.

Actress Priyanka Chopra played double role in this film, to portray the girl from future she coloured her hair red and black to portray present.

Science fiction action film Enthiran or Robot (2010) directed by S. Shankar is another very popular film that used stunning visual effects to spellbound the audience.

Hong-Kong based visual effect companies Kinomotive Studios and Menfond Electronics along with Legacy Effects took responsibility for the film’s CGI work.

Prime Focus Company carried out Ra One’s 3D conversion with London based colourist Richard Fearon performing the colour grading.

Ra One had more than 3,000 CGI shots compared to other Bollywood films which use 100 to 200 CGI shots.

The 3D conversion process required 2,600 artists to convert 4,400 shots of the film.

Ra One had more CGI shots compared to Enthiran.

Artists took 2 and half years to complete the visual effects work.

Nvidia technologies provided the information technology based software utilised for the effects and Edwark Quirk supervised the Computer-generated imagery used in the film.

Made with the budget of rupees 150 crore, Ra One was the most expensive film at the time of release defeating the budget of Enthiran which was rupees 132 crore.

Directed by Anubhav Sinha, Ra One (2011) featured Shah Rukh Khan in the lead role along with Kareena Kapoor and Arjun Rampal.

Ra One is the example of Indian Cinema’s increasing use of CGI technology.

They used Dolby Surround 7.1 system for sound enhancements.

Shah Rukh Khan starred other two films Fan and Zero also used CGI techniques to create the storyline.

As the usage of CGI shots within the films are increasing, the demand for skilled professionals is also increasing day by day.

Superhero film Krrish 3 directed by Rakesh Roshan received appreciation form the critics for its visual effects, cinematography and entertainment value.

Red Chillies Entertainment worked on the CGI effects worth Rupees 260 million for Krrish 3.

Creating seamless CGI was the main focus of the Red Chillies VFX.

In the film Krrish 3, Hrithik Roshan could fly on rooftop, jump from the 80 storey building, walk on water and run through hot molten metal and all these actions were made possible through CGI.

Directed by Vijay Krishna Acharya and produced by Aditya Chopra Dhoom 3 is a 2013 Indian action thriller film.

Tata Elxsi-Visual Computing Labs (VCL) worked on the CGI shots of this film; they delivered 1500 VFX shots with a team of 100 artists in a span of 11 months.

The action sequences of the film demanded a high number of VFX shots and Visual Computing Labs helped to achieve that demand.

Visual Computing Labs or VCL offered larger-than-life experience to the viewers.

Along with Award winning senior VFX Supervisor Joel Hynek, Creative director Pankaj Khandpur and VFX Supervisors Sherry Bharda and Vishal Anand action sequences were planned and storyboards were structured which were elaborated further using pre-visualization.

For Dhoom 3 VCL created digital characters, vehicles, two-Wheelers and 3D water Jet Ski using CGI techniques.

VCL also worked on interior and exterior of the film’s set for specific sequence and created accurate CGI lighting and reflections on the helmet visor. CGI Technique In Bollywood Movies @ Animation Kolkata

Bhaag Milkha Bhaag is another film where lots of CGI shots were created.

A team of about 50 artists worked and delivered over 150 CGI shots, covering races of Rome, Tokyo and Commonwealth with 2 months.

The team created CGI crowds in CGI stadiums and gave complete freedom to the director to move his camera freely.

VCL or Visual Computing Labs relied on stock footage to get the correct picture of the crowd of 1960s, they used art crowd generating software: Massive.

Bollywood is making use of CGI in almost making all films.

Films like Chennai Express, Wanted, Ek Tha Tiger, Tiger Zinda Hain, Om Shanti Om, Robot 2.0 and many more movies have CGI shots to heighten the viewing experience.

Indian epic action film Baahubali: The Beginning (2015) has CGI shots around 2500 and till now Ra One has used the maximum number of CGI shots among all Bollywood Movies.

No doubt in future more Bollywood movies will be made using CGI techniques to compete in the International market.

So, Dear Readers and Aspirant our MAAC Kolkata Centres provides various courses on VFX /CGI Technology and Animation.

Join Us and pursue your career in CGI.

5 VFX Tricks Used In The Game Of Thrones Series

Today we will discuss mainly about the VFX Tricks that are being used in TV series Game of Thrones.

Through this blog we will take you inside an American television series called Game of Thrones created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss.

The first episode of this series premiered on HBO in the United States on April 2011 and the final episode will telecast on April 2019.

The shooting of Game of Thrones took place in Morocco, Iceland, Ireland, Spain, Scotland and Canada along with United States.

It is set on the fictional continents of Westeros and Essos and has several plots.

Game of Thrones has a huge viewership on HBO and has wide active international admirers.

It has received awards including Hugo Awards for Best Dramatic Presentation.

VFX Secrets of Game Of Thrones

Green Screen

In the ninth episode of second season Battle of Blackwater Bay occurred.

It has good crazy visual effects where the ship was captured against the green backdrop.

Ship’s deck was designed and the actors were captured on the ship, later the green screen was removed to add the real background of the sea.

Battle scenes were staged on the land because of problem in shooting on water.

Most of the water scenes were captured on the land or in the man-made pool with the chroma keying and later the effect of sea were added.

VFX Company Rodeo FX created water simulations around Theon in the scene where he floats around in the aftermath.

Computer Generated Fire

The VFX department developed catapult to fire bags of burning napalm for the wildfire explosion on water.

But later they decided to colour the regular fire green in post-production.

A flaming arrow delivered by Bronn spreads fire over the water in between Stannis’s Ship.

King Stannis, lord of Dragonstone met with surprise wildfire attack.

The computer generated fire effect was created with the contribution of Pixomondo VFX Company.

Along with fire simulation, water simulation was also used vividly in the plot of the episodes.

Fire weapons, smokes in the battle field were CG generated.

Rodeo FX adjoined ocean and background ships to sets; they created fire on the sails using Houdini.

As the story moved visual effects became more complex.

Visual effects scenes were also provided by Companies like British based Peanut FX, US based Gradient effects and Canadian based Spin VFX.

Crowd Simulation

In the above picture we can see the Bolton army standing in formation.

To show the battle scene with thousand and thousand of armies CGI effect Crowd Simulation comes to great help.

Massive Software developed by Weta Digital can create crowds of digital people who can be programmed to fill a scene and move independently.

For Game of Thrones live action with main actors was shot on private land in Northern Ireland.

Digital soldiers, digital horses, weapons and flags were also added with Massive software.

Rodeo FX did many of the crowd simulation, digital matte painting and animation.

Rodeo FX also worked on CG environment using Houdini or Nuke for the night-time battle and fight scenes.

Matte Painting

Game of Thrones has lot of relocations.

The plot follows from snowy north of Westeros to Qarth desert city.

Here Matte Paintings played an important role in establishment of the settings.

For this series artists analysed the descriptions of the castles and landscapes from the books.

Digital artist Sven Sauer with the team worked on the matte paintings to bring the Game of Thrones world to life.

Matte painting helped to create illusion environment of King’s Landing, Dragonstone, Qarth and Harrenhall as these locations don’t exist in real world.

With the aid of green screens, real environment and digital artistry Sauer and his team created the backdrops and environment for the live action plot.

Live action and CGI worked seamlessly here to bring the fantasy world alive.

Digital software gave appropriate texture to the castle of Harrenhal after the effect of huge fireball.

A good matte painting is always tends to be full of memories, telling stories about the past.

CG Creatures

VFX Supervisors Steve Kullback and Joe Bauer said that they relied on alligators, bats, lizards and horny toads for the inspiration of Dragons.

CG Dragons of this series attracted the audience most.

We can see in the picture that dragon’s head is resting on Daenerys’s lap and for that shot VFX team used green painted head representation.

Pixomondo developed the Computer generated Dragons with photorealistic skin and scales.

Animators worked on the skin, scales, veins and every detail of dragons on 3D Max software.

Wings and muscle movements of the dragons were based on chicken.

At Pixomondo artists worked on storyboard and pre-visualizations of the scenes where Daenerys climbed on Dragon.

Kind of dragon-shaped flight simulator were used which allowed Daenerys to act against living dragon.

The team searched through the internet and collected huge images of wildlife and applied them on the designs.

Dragons had wingspan of 40 feet and breathe fire about 50 feet.

They animated the dragon and applied it to motion control camera rig.

Dragon’s flying styles was copied from bats, owls and eagles.

Even the background of the flying dragon was also CG.

VFX Supervisors Steve Kullback said that MPC Studio worked for CG Mammoth which was 22 feet tall, 15 feet wide and 18 feet long.

Team created mammoth’s roaring sound effects by combining sounds of bears, walruses and camels.

In the scene where Cersei was made to walk naked on the street as part of her punishment, the body double Rebecca Van Cleave did the shot for Lena Headley.

Rebecca walked the street naked and the editing team later expertly replaced Lena’s head on Rebecca’s body.

As Rebecca said about her experience in an interview that “I never thought that I would be in Dubrovnik surrounded by hundreds of extras and crew members throwing food at me, it was scariest and an amazing experience.”

Here we got a view about VFX tricks used in the Game of Thrones series to know more about VFX courses at Maac Kolkata just register with us.