Feel The Pulse of Indian Media Industry

Clusters College For Media & design and Malayala Manorama is organizing a career seminar on Visual Effects and Audio Engineering in Trivandrum, Kerala. Those who like to attend the program can call 97470 10001. Registration to this program is free. 

Going Deeper into X-Men's Origins ( Find out how they created X-Men Prequel)

Find out how they created some new and rebooted super powers for the latest X-Men prequel.

In X-Men: First Class, the origin of the X-Men world is born during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, with Charles Xavier/Professor X (James McAvoy) and Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto meeting and becoming friends and rivals. The VFX challenge was to visually convey the nascent super powers in exciting and diverse ways, including Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Emma Frost (January Jones) and the supper baddie, Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon).

John Dykstra, a legend in the VFX world, of course, is no stranger to comic superheroes (Spider-Man). But, as the visual effects designer, he was faced with some new challenges in turning out 1,150 shots: time and budgetary constraints and collaborating with global vendors (among them Digital Domain, Rhythm & Hues, MPC, Cinesite, Weta Digital, Method Studios and Luma Pictures).

"We had a very collapsed schedule," Dykstra concedes. "It was slightly less than a year and I've never done anything like that before (Spider-Man was frequently two years). It was a unique experience for me and I had my misgivings about it, but I really liked [director] Matthew Vaughn's irreverent approach to Kick-Ass. And one of the things I think that the superhero genre lacks is the ability to poke fun at itself. The characters are self-deprecating and I love the whole idea of it being the '60s. When he talked to me initially, he said he wanted it to have the feeling of a James Bond film, and I think it does. We shot in England in the wintertime, and, of course, this is an iconic American film, so the challenge was to find environments that either echoed the American environment feeling or that could be enhanced to look as though the stuff was shot here. The idea also was not to make a movie that looked like it was shot in the '60s…"

Dykstra got the most creative pleasure out of helping come up with the look of the iconic super powers. "In an odd way, it's like a poem: it wants to capture the essence of what the power is in a simple visual term that everybody can understand," he suggests. "Of course, some are cooler than others, so we ended up creating a very broad range of visual options for these characters, mostly in illustrations, and then we picked through the images we thought were most representative of the powers and who the characters were supposed to be.

"The most challenging thing was to come up with a range of super powers that didn't overlap each other hugely and that we could execute smoothly using Matthew's preference for original photography. We were also constrained by time in terms of preparing things from scratch."

For Shaw, the idea was to convey his ability to absorb energy like a big battery and then unleash it. All of Shaw's scenes were handled by Digital Domain, which principally focused on animating Shaw and handling certain CG environments such as the atrium and mirror room. DD's team consisted of Jay Barton (vfx supervisor), Nikos Kalaitzidis (digital effects supervisor), Bernd Angerer (animation supervisor), Brian Gazdik (effects animation supervisor) and Dan Platt (character modeling lead).

Not surprisingly, the technique for creating CG humans on this one was different from both Benjamin Button andClu: "We only had a few months to do 100 shots," Kalaitzidis suggests. "We used witness cams so all the animation had to be done by hand for Kevin's performance, and he has quite a distinctive walk and swagger. The mirror room was shot on greenscreen and we had to recreate this digital environment with animated versions of Shaw and Magneto as well as CG body doubles to reflect in the mirrors infinitely. In the past, we used mental ray for CG heads, but here we switched to Vray because we had a lot of motion blur and reflections in the mirrors, so we wanted a renderer that could utilize both.

"With Kevin Bacon's head and face, we tried to do all the look dev within the final render, within lighting itself, and then do most of the tweaks in compositing when it came to the reflections," he continues. "So we knew we had to do this out of the box immediately."

For Mystique, Rhythm & Hues (under the supervision of Greg Steele) took her transition to a more sophisticated level, according to Dykstra. "In an odd way, the conceit is that when Mystique was younger she did this transformation in a slightly different way: the scales being slightly longer and the transformation being slightly showier than when she became the more mature Rebecca."

Rhythm & Hues also did Angel's wings (modeled after a dragon fly); however, Emma Frost, which posed another significant challenge. Dykstra says they made her like a faceted crystal as opposed to a piece of glass. "That was tough getting the refraction and reflection just right, and the sharpness of the edges so she was able to move without looking like she was made of jell-o or the polygon model of a human being. It's all algorithms: figuring out how much refraction to mix in, how much reflection to include and how much world noise to include as these facets adjust relative to one another for her to be able to move."

Meanwhile, Havok (Lucas Till) required a particular character arc to his light effect, which was done by Luma Pictures (supervised by Vince Cirelli). "He learns how to master its execution which starts out as rings that go in all directions like a light bulb," Dykstra adds.

Then there's Beast (Nicholas Hoult), which was created by MPC (under the supervision of Nicolas Aithadi). The thing that was unique about it was the lack of time spent studying the transformation," Dykstra offers. And that was Matthew's choice: he chose to make it much more of a cameo. And I think that was successful. Frankly, we've seen those kinds of things happened and a very smart choice on his part."

And what's the big take away on this X-Men prequel?

"There's good news and bad news," Dykstra suggests. "The good news is that we succeeded and I'm proud of the work; the bad news is that we succeeded, which means it will be the standard for how these movies will be made. We were very, very fortunate. We had a director willing to give us responsibility and to trust us to provide him with what he needed, and that decision-making process was collapsed. I hope this doesn't become the norm, but, having said that, I'm sure this will become the norm."

Bill Desowitz is senior editor of AWN & VFXWorld.

London calling for Pirates 4 at Cinesite

On Stranger Tides is the fourth film in the Pirates of the Caribbean series. This time around Jack Sparrow and Barbossa are searching for the fountain of youth, but so is their foe Blackbeard and his daughter. fxguide talks to Cinesite about their visual effects contribution to the film, which was the studio’s first full stereo 3D project, with the work spanning a carriage chase sequence through London, CG toads and the creation of Barbossa’s peg leg.

Paws, claws and jaws in Attack the Block

In director Joe Cornish’s debut feature film, Attack the Block, a South London teenage gang squares up against an army of invading alien monsters. Stockholm visual effects and animation studio Fido contributed around 100 shots to enhance the on-set creatures. Here's an fxinsider article at fxguide that takes a look at how Fido created CG fur, paws, claws and jaws for the film. Warning: spoilers

An Interview with Dhaneesh Jameson on making of Wilson Periera via Cgtantra.com

Born and Brought up in Kerala ( God's Own Country unearthing brilliance in an artist ) the World's inspirations etched on his mind translating into a sketch on his canvas, Dhaneesh today has a story to tell. The story of Wilson Periera!

Dhaneesh Jameson all of 26, his thoughts meandering towards Dark humor, has won several accolades for One Fine Friday. Again to prove his mettle at handling the melancholic with subtle wit, he is on the threshold of bringing Wilson Periera to light. Here is a little chit chat that we had with him and he pours out his travels in conveying yet another interesting story. Here's to Wilson Periera and the artistic wilderness of Dhaneesh's talent.

We are waiting to watch the entire film, the film that allured Naseeruddin Shah, Tom Alter, Mohanlal and made them give voice overs for the protagonist! 

To view complete article, interview and clip , follow the link http://www.cgtantra.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=458&Itemid=40

Aiding the invasion in Battle: Los Angeles

In Battle: Los Angeles, the Californian city once again finds itself under attack from alien invaders. Visual effects supervisor Everett Burrell and an army of effects artists wrought havoc on the city as well as realizing the other-worldly warriors. Here's an article at fxguide and an fxinsider interview on Cinesite's smoke rings.

Glassworks goes big for MINI

‘MINI vs Monster’, a stereoscopic spot directed by Robert Jitzmark, features digital crowds and other VFX by Glassworks. Lead 2D and 3D artists Morton Vinther and Markus Lauterbach from the studio’s Amsterdam office break down the work for an fxinsider interview at fxguide. Included is a making of VFX clip.

Stargate crashes The Event

In the second episode of NBC series The Event, a plane once headed to kill the President mysteriously emerges from a wormhole and spectacularly crash-lands in the desert, care of visual effects from Stargate Studios. Lead compositor Diego Galtieri takes fxguide through the plane sequence.

Rhythm & Hues' animation for Yogi Bear

For Yogi Bear, Rhythm & Hues mixed 3D versions of the beloved Hanna-Barbera characters with live action whilst preserving the popular elements of the 2D cartoons. Here's my article at fxguide where I talked to visual effects supervisor Betsy Paterson and animation director Joe Ksander about getting the right performances out of a 3D Yogi and Boo Boo.

An update on updates at fxguide

There are a bunch of cool new postings at fxguide. Check out Mike Seymour's article on Hiring Around the World, with tips and info from recruiters at some of the big vfx facilities. Mike also has an fxpodcast with vfx supe Matthew Unwin about MPC's 'Cubehead' Drench spot, with some behind the scenes clips. Then there's Jeff Heusser's report from the VES 1099 Dilemma event which looked at labor issues facing companies and artists. The latest fxguidetv episode has interviews with Animal Logic artists about their briliant Legend of the Guardians animated feature, plus a round-up of the new term coming at fxphd. The latest RED centre podcast has an interview with the guys behind the RED Barn and Vegas HDRx shots, plus the Red Bull Stratos in the RedRoom and the Teradek Cube Ninjas. And if that's not enough, head over to the Tom Cruise blog which has a posting on visual effects training (and mentions fxguide and vfxblog!).

SWAY Studio's VFX for MINI Countryman spot

For 'Flow', a spot promoting the 2011 MINI Countryman, SWAY Studio created hundreds of vehicles magically splitting, reforming and driving with precision through the streets of Milan. Here's my interview at fxguide with visual effects supervisor Aaron Powell about the use of SWAY's Drive-a-Tron driving simulation tool for the commercial.

NVIDIA GPU Conference: 3ds Max Adds iRay Rendering Support

The 2010 NVIDIA GTC conference kicked off yesterday in San Jose and in its second year is more than double in size from last year. What’s the conference all about and why do we care? Consider it something of a SIGGRAPH-style gathering, but focusing on GPU technology. The speed curve in GPU technology is quickly outpacing that of CPUs, and its massive parallel processing and lower power consumption is finding adoption in areas of the visual effects and post business. This year’s CS5 Adobe’s Mercury Playback Engine , The Foundry’s Blink Technology, and ILM’s fire simulations are all examples of this technology touching our industry. If you look at the conference as a whole, it’s clear that GPU tech — and NVIDIA’s CUDA specifically — is hitting critical mass.

At the opening keynote, Autodesk announced that 3ds Max will include Mental Images iRay support, added in a maintenance release which will be available to subscription holders on September 29th. While not designed for rendering sequences, direct iRay support does give the ability to get speedy ray-traced stills utilizing CUDA technology on supported graphics card. Mental Images’ Michael Kaplan presented a session at GTC on Tuesday which covered a bit of background about iRay as well as the new support in 3ds. Click through for the press release and more details about the 3ds support.

Before the press release, some key details from Michael Kaplan about iRay in 3ds Max:

Materials: Supports standard advanced rendering materials in 3ds Max. No special or vendor specific materials required

• Arch and Design Materials
• Pro Materials (Autodesk Materials, v1 and v2)
• mia_materials
• Subset of standard materials

Lights: Supports standard advanced rendering lights in 3ds Max

• Photometric lights
• IES profile lights
• Area lights
• Point lights, spot lights, directional lights
• HDR environment maps, domes
• Max Sun&Sky model
• Emissive surfaces (additional color)

Map Support

• Bump maps
• Diffuse, specular, transparency, refraction, reflection, anistotropy, etc.
• Map blends
• 2D noise, 3D noise

Geometry: all 3ds Max geometry, including displacement geometry

Cameras: Full 3ds Max camera support

• mia_lens_shader
• Depth of field supported without performance penalty

And the press release from NVIDIA:

---

GPU Technology Conference 2010 (GTC), SAN JOSE, Calif. – Sept. 21, 2010 -NVIDIA and Autodesk are jointly demonstrating powerful new capabilities based upon NVIDIA technology, expected to come to Autodesk(r) 3ds Max(r) software Subscription members as part of the 3ds Max 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack this fall. NVIDIA and Autodesk have worked to revolutionize photorealistic rendering and physics simulation with the integration ofthe new GPU-accelerated iray(r) renderer from mental images>(r) and a new rigid bodyphysics workflow powered by NVIDIA(r) PhysX(tm) technology into both Autodesk 3ds Max and Autodesk(r) 3ds Max(r) Design 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack software.

The new iray renderer within 3ds Max provides creative visualization artists with a more intuitive means for creating images that rival photographs, in a fraction of the time needed with traditional workflows. 3D artists can now use materials and lights which correspond and react more like those in the physical world to more quickly bring their 3ds Max worlds to life, rather than juggling a multitude of computer graphics controls to merely approximate it. The iray workflow is enhanced with considerable acceleration from NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs) based on the NVIDIA CUDA(tm) architecture. While iray produces identical images on either CPUs or GPUs, 3ds Max users will enjoy up to 6X faster results over dual quad-core CPUs when using a GPU such as the new NVIDIA Quadro(r) 5000 or Tesla(tm) C2050. Designers looking for the fastest iray results can further boost their speed by adding additional NVIDIA GPUs to their system.

NVIDIA PhysX technology fuels a new rigid body dynamics feature set for 3ds Max, allowing animators to control their simulations directly within the 3ds Max viewport. The PhysX feature supports static, dynamic, and kinematic rigid bodies and an array of constraints in a more efficient workflow that has been production proven by numerous game developers over the past several years. Realistic results are more quickly achieved by choosing from preset real-world materials having physical properties, and then tweaking parameters as required. The resulting simulations are immediatelyusable by effects artists and have a seamless data path to the PhysX engine employed by top tier game developers such as Sumea and Obsidion.

“We continually aim to provide superior workflows and cutting-edge capabilities within 3ds Max, and the rendering and physics solutions powered byNVIDIA technologies excel at continuing that 20 year tradition,” said Ken Pimentel, director of Visual Communication Solutions at Autodesk. “This update is a terrific leap forward for our 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design Subscription members, who will have physics directly in their viewports with PhysX and can soon enter this next stage of the rendering revolution with iray’s GPU accelerated rendering.”
To learn more, visit: www.nvidia.com/quadro

The visual effects of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

In Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, the title character woos his new girlfriend by battling her seven evil exes in Japanese Anime-style fights punctuated with video game-like on-screen graphics. Visual effects supervisor Frazer Churchill oversaw more than 1200 shots for film. fxguide takes a look at the work by Double Negative and Mr. X.

The visual effects of Inception

Check out fxguide's coverage of the visual effects in Christopher Nolan's Inception. First, Mike Seymour has an in-depth interview with vfx supe Paul Franklin of Double Negative. Then, read about New Deal Studios miniature effects for the explosive demolition of the hospital.

Animation, Gaming, VFX Center to Open in Mumbai

VARIETY reports that the Indian government will form the National Center of Excellence in Animation, Gaming and Visual Effects in Mumbai, announced by Ambika Soni, the minister of information and broadcasting. The government will invest 520 million Rupees ($11.4 million) into the venture.

Additionally, she announced the creation of the National Heritage Mission with the goal of preserving Indian cinema. The Mission will open in 2013 in Mumbai. The investment is $145.1 million.

A Worth Blog Site

It was a drizzling day when I meet Mr. Hans P Bacher in Manila, Philippines, We had a great discussion about  animation industry and trends, His vision and way of working is really interesting, His advises to boost Indian training industry to the world stag was  marvelous . He is maintaining and updating a Blog Site, I like to share his blog address with our visitors to get updates from his site. It’s really a significance blog, so guys don’t miss it.

http://one1more2time3.wordpress.com/

Happy Blogging

San

Clusters Launching - Advanced Diploma in Visual Effects for Film

Our Story 

Welcome to Clusters School of Digital Arts, an environment where committed individuals can develop their creative and technical skills in order to participate in, and contribute to, a viable film and production industry around the globe.

Clusters specialize in teaching on Visual effects for film and entertainment.

Learning to be a visual effects artist isn't something that we can be taught from a book. Here at clusters you learn-by-doing, through a combination of hands-on experience and guest tutors who are experts in their fields, and sufficient behind theory to backup the practical applications. You gain experience in film theories, in digital composting, Rotoscopy, Tracking, Camera Match moves, in lighting, camerawork and Green Screen shots.

We welcome people with flair and dedication and a passionate commitment to Visual effects and entertainment industry, people who are the future of the film industry in India and beyond. We know the industry is impulsive, creative and challenging, so we provide you with the training and support to fulfill your aspirations

The Curriculum

The curriculum is designed for 12 modules, each of which covers a specific aspect of visual effects in film production. These modules are taught in an integrated way where several modules may be under way at any one time. This allows mentors to better mirror the process and pipeline of visual effects and also allows the flexibility to accommodate availability of visiting lectures and the ability to take advantage of production opportunities as they arise.

The course is delivered through both Studio Learning and project-based learning. Students have the opening to analysis theory on a range of handy projects. During the year students will work together to make a number of VFX short films including at least one Special effect shot and one short visual effects film. These films are generally screened at the course commencement ceremony.

As the course progresses students will be given assistance to select the areas of the industry in which they wish to seek out employment and will have opening to work in these specific areas on student productions. From the year’s work, students will be able to compile a show reel, which should showcase these areas.

Course structure

Clusters School aims to practice students in a realistic and handy way to take up a profession in the visual effects or Film industry. To that end, the guiding principles and practices of the School mirror existing industry standards, and aim to reproduce as strongly as possible the workplace environment.

Each Months student are issued with a call-sheet which outlines the Month’s programme and requirements. Students are expected to be in attendance at the School from 9.00 Am until 4.45pm each weekday and to attend for extended hours if required.

The course is hands-on and practical. Teaching is project-based. Students make a range of individual projects that may include music videos, documentaries and short digital dramatic films. The focus of the year is the production short films.

Application process

There are up to 50 seats available for Visual effects for film course. Once we receive your application we will review it and determine whether you would be on a shortlist. If you are, we will request that you attend an interview. If you are not selected for an interview we will inform you promptly.

We will be looking for a level of commitment and passion about the film industry and an understanding that hard work rather than glamour is at the heart of the business.

Students wishing to apply must complete an application form. This may be submitted by e-mail or in hard-copy.

International students will need to apply for a student visa. Details are available from the Indian Immigration Service, and can be viewed on their website at  http://www.immigrationindia.nic.in/

Location and Facilities

Clusters School of Digital art is now at Trivandrum, India, in a purpose-designed facility. It is close to the Asia Largest Technology Park and several local production companies. The building is spacious, with Several Labs and a large production office, and a studio and 30-seat cinema. There is also a library with essential resource material including an expanding DVD classics collection and many Indian and International short films.

Students have access to the premises on a 24-hour basis (with permission) in order to replicate the workplace atmosphere. This enables efficient use of the equipment and other resources, particularly during production.

The resources of the School, Includes studio space, equipment, archival and reference materials, post-production facilities and creative expertise are available to assist in meeting the demands of the curriculum.

Equipment

Clusters School of Digital Arts provides a range of technical equipment to facilitate production and post-production in both film and digital media. The school uses a range of digital cameras, both handicams and HD Cameras

Students edit on Final Cut Pro and also have the opportunity to use Green screen facility during the Film Intensive segment of the course. Sound post-production is carried out in the Pro Tools suite.

Our Objectives

Clusters School of Digital Arts objectives are

·         Meet the demand for visual effects artist by training those wishing to make a career in film and television

·         ensure that new entrants into the industry are adequately and realistically prepared to follow a career path

·         Ensure that industry-based standards are established and maintained.

We aim to turn out the Compositors, Visual effects artist, animators, VFX Supervisors and technical crews of the future; graduates who are well prepared to make a career in film and/or television.

Malayala Manorama & Clusters Proudly presents - Mega Seminar on Visual Effects in Films

Clusters, one of the leading Animation and Visual Effects school and
Rhythm & Hues, a Los Angeles based Academy Award

winning film production studio specializing in Visual Effects is conducting a

seminar on Visual effects. Rhythm & Hues studios is known for

its contribution to a great number of Hollywood feature films in the last

21 years, movies like The Golden Compass, A Night At The Museum I , 

Superman Returns, The Chronicles of Narnia, Alvin & 

The Chipmunks and many more. Aspirants who want to build

a career in film and Visual effects can directly interact with technical person

to clear their doubts.

Technical Session by Mr. Dileep Varma, Rhythm & Hues Studios
On 12th December 2009, Saturday 10.30 am. at SP Grand Days,
Trivandrum, Kerala, India

Call us & register for free now @ +91 97470 10001