ASIFA India

In its continued effort of sharing knowledge by bringing forth some of the most interesting topics for the benefit of the animation and vfx community, ASIFA India’s latest Cg MeetUp saw a packed house at the Whistling Woods auditorium.

With behind the scenes action being presented by the speakers on some of the most recent and popular television commercials, the meet up proved to be a lot of fun and gave a never seen before insight into the making of these commercials. The session was kick started by Prakash Verma from Nirvana Films, who has directed the immensely popular Vodafone Zoo Zoo commercials. His presentation included the whole pre-production process of designing the look of the characters to planning the shoot and then getting all elements together including sound to produce a completely new world which was all built as a set. Prakash Verma further spoke about how he got inspiration from certain old animation films and how they came up with a unique style which so closely resembled animation but in fact was all live action. A round of questions and answers followed and Prakash Verma’s presentation ended after he shared some funny videos and photographs from the set which had the audience in splits.

 The next to follow was the Visual Computing Labs team consisting of Mandar Pingulkar , Deepak Ganguly and Sanoj Menon. They presented the making of the Spice Mobile commercial which required them to create a photo real brooder fish, its babies and an eel. They explained the audience the thought behind achieving a documentary type look for the commercial. The team went through the kind of references that they looked at from the animation point of view and also shared the lighting and compositing process to achieve a realistic underwater look. After the Spice Mobile commercial, they showcased their work on the Kellogs Honeyloops commercial which had a cartoony honey bee in a live action environment interacting with live actors. They shared some of the character designs for the honey bee, the rigging and animation tests and explained in detail a shot where the bee went from a live action environment to a full cg one. 

  Vaibhav, Hitesh & Prabhav from the Rhythm & Hues team were the next to present the Alpenliebe Creamfills commercial. Their presentation started with explaining the audience the challenge that the team faced in getting the Cg lions to look completely real in the first part of the commercial and then make them stand up on their two legs to dance in the later part without losing the real attributes of the characters. They took the audience through the live action shooting process and the role of a vfx team on the set, they also shared some of the reference videos that were looked at to get the right kind of energy and rhythm for choreographing the lions. Further, they shared a few animation iterations that some of the select shots went through. The lighting and compositing process to seamlessly integrate the cg characters into a live action environment formed the concluding part of the Rhythm & Hues presentation. A question and answer session followed to end the round of presentations.

The event ended with the Nvidia sponsored lucky draw where one member of the audience was the lucky winner of a nvidia graphics card.

We are pleased to announce the upcoming CgMeetup in Mumbai.
This time the topic  is “Commercials : Behind The Scenes.”

With a sneak peak into the making of the – Vodafone Zoo Zoo commercials by Nirvana Films, The Alpenliebe Creamfills commercial by Rhythm & Hues, the Spice Mobile and Kellogs Honeyloops commercial by VCL, the meetup promises to be a lot of fun!

The event would be held on Sunday, 28th March at the Whistling Woods International Auditorium
from  2:00pm – 6:00pm.

Entry is free of cost but one must pre-register for the event.
To pre-register visit http://asifa.in/cgmeetup/cgmeetregis.php
Hope to see you all there !

ASIFA India is proud to present another CgMeetup in Mumbai!!! The speaker for this meetup is none other than the Award winning Animation Director from Rhythm & Hues, Los Angeles, Mr.Bill Kroyer. The session will include Roots of Cg, whats happening now in Animation and the Digital Dilemma. For those of you who are not familiar with Bill Kroyer, he is one of the pioneers of computer animation industry. He was responsible for some of the early computer graphics in the movie “TRON” and he directed the animated feature film “Fern Gully”. He also directed the Academy Award nominated short film “Technological Threat” and has been the Governor of the Academy’s animation branch.

The event will be held on Sunday, 19th July 2009 at R.D. National College, Bandra(W) from 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm.

The entry is free to all but one must pre-register for the event by mailing cgmeetup@asifa.in

Please visit our website for more details : http://www.asifa.in/

We are looking forward to seeing you there.

To commemorate the 3 year anniversary of the CG-Meetup series, Asifa India conducted a special session on Animation & Vfx case studies on 14th of February.
There was a power pack show with Studios like Visual Computing Labs(VCL), Prime Focus and Rhythm & Hues showcasing their works.
It was a full house at National College Auditorium in Bandra. There was a crowd of around 600 people.

The event began with Vishal Anand from VCL presenting the making of “Roadside Romeo“. Vishal mentioned that one of the biggest challenges they faced in the movie was the fur of the characters in the movie. He showed how the main character was created through various stages from the concept work to modeling, rigging, texturing, adding fur, so on and so forth.
He showed how the background designs were created using matte paintings.
Along with that he also presented some scene breakdowns of different lights used and how compositors decided the final look of the film.
The highlight of the presentation was a clip from the movie showing the villain character Charlie Anna. The crowd could control their laughter looking at that scene.

Next on was Merzin Tavaria from Prime Focus who showcases the making of “Raaz – The Mystery Continues”. Merzin started of by talking about the company and how it has grown over the years. Following that he showcased some of the Cg work that they had done in the movie which included creating a CG Bull. He mentioned that it was one of the biggest challenges as they had to make it look real. He showed different stages the bull went through like modeling, texturing, fur, muscle system, etc.
He showed some scenes in which the Bull was used. And how some scenes were converted from day scenes to night scenes.
Besides that he also spoke about how in the movie different characters were given a scary look by using some paint techniques. Ricky from prime focus gave some more useful information on how it was achieved technically.
Then Merzin also showed certain set extension scenes which was created using various matte paintings.
After the break Merzin continued showcasing the making of “Chandini Chowk To China“. He showed a clip which showed some of the work done by them. He mentioned that the biggest challenge in the movie was the scene in which the lead actor kicks the villain. It was a complicated shot as it involved Cg water which had to look as realistic as possible. Besides that is also had boats flying in air which had to be done in 3d. He also showed how some of the scenes involved weapons that were entirely made on the computer.
People were thrilled by the work done on both these movies.

The last presenters for the evening were Sharmila Venugopal, Jeetendra Bhagtani and Jateen Thakkar from Rhythm & Hues Studios, who showcased the making of “The Incredible Hulk“.
Sharmila started of with an introduction about the company followed by the work done on “The Incredible Hulk”. Jeetendra came on next and spoke briefly on some stages like preproduction, modeling, texturing, muscle system, tracking and animation. He also showed the transformation sequence and various shot breakdowns from the movie which explained the different stages.
After that Jateen came and spoke about the lighting and compositing stages. He explained briefly how lighting is divided at R&H. He showed a few shots with breakdowns in which various fx layers were shown, the matte painting was shown and how all of that was put together. Next he showed a before and after of the final fight between hulk and abomination which was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone.

Over all an exciting meetup which ended with an excited audience member winning a Nvidia Quadro Fx Graphic card!

ASIFA India is celebrating 3 years of its CG Meet up series. A special Animation and VFX showcase has been planned for the occasion, wherein three renowned studios shall present case studies on movies done by them.

The event will be held on February 14th, 2009 at R.D. National College,Bandra(W) from 2 pm to 6 pm.

The lineup includes presentations by Prime Focus, Rhythm & Hues and Visual Computing Labs. Prime focus is presenting work done in “Chandini Chowk To China” and “Raaz 2″. Rhythm & Hues would be presenting work done on “The Incredible Hulk” and Visual Computing Labs would be presenting work done on “Roadside Romeo”.

The experts will present technical shot breakdowns in detail, showcase behind the scene videos, discuss the challenges faced during the specific shots and projects and will share about thier approach towards the entire project, solutions and interesting facts and happenings during the making.

The entry is free to all but one must pre-register for the event by mailing cgmeetup@asifa.in