Prakash Kumararajan working as Executive Producer / VFX Supervisor.
Was Born in Neyveli,a small town in southern part of India.Watching movies and playing Computer Games inspired him to choose his career in the field of Visual Effects.Terminator 2,Matrix ,Starwars and I Robot are most influential movie .
Started his career with Skywork studios.During his tenure with Technicolor India he contributed for Animated TV Series Barnyard and Penquins of Madagasscar.
Double Negative - London, hired him in the year 2011 as FX Technical Director where he worked for TitleJohn Carter and Total Recall.
In the year 2013 he was associated with Basilic fly Studio as CG Supervisor for the movie"The Legend of Hercules".
Worked as VFX Supervisor for the recently released movie "The Gandhi Murder"produced by Nugen Media,Dubai.
Hi Guys, This post is not related to FX. If you are interested in knowing more about History,you would find this post interesting. Recent visit to the Brihadeeswarar Temple at Tanjore in the Indian state of tamilnadu is an inspiration for writing this post. Tanjore is the favoured capital of Chola Empire( 985 - 1014). The Chola Empire florished between 9th - 13th century on the banks of river cauvery.
The Chola empire was expanded as far as Sri Lanka in the South and Orissa in the Norteast. Karikala Chola was famous among early Chola Kings,while Raja Raja Chola,Rajendra Chola and Kulothunga Chola were notable emperors of medieval period. Below is the statue of Raja Raja Cholan
The Empire is known for its Military,Economic and Cultural power in Asia. MILITARY ARMY KINGS(With Body Guards) INFANTRY(Foot Soldier with spears) HORSE MAN ELEPHANT
NAVY By using his navy Raja Raja Cholan extended his rule to Malay peninsula,Sumatra,Java and Borneo.
Below picture is the depiction of Chola Navy.
Chola Wars : War against Vengi Kalinga Conquest Western Chalukya wars Ganga Wars Northern Wars Southern Wars Naval Conquest Eventhough The cholas are known for their power to conquer.They established them self as a good administrators. Administration System : KING (Head of Government / Empire) | ---- Empire is divided into provinces GOVERNORS (In charge of each province) | ----- Province divided into villages EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE (Elected by drawing lots) Architecture : The Chola emperors were great builders and resulted in great architecture. Temple is is used not only for worship but also as - Centers of economic activity. - Functioned as School. - To safeguard people during war. - Center for social and cultural gathering.
Brihadeeswarar Temple is a 1000 year old temple,build between 1003 and 1010 AD by Raja Raja Cholan - I called as Emperor Arulmozhivarman.
The temple was maintained and expanded by different rulers at different century. Below are the emperors who has contributed: Raja Raja Cholan Pandyas Delhi Sultanate Madurai Sultanate Nayaks Marathas Some interesting facts about the temple 1.Temple Tower (Vimana) is 216 ft high. 2.Top most stone weights 80 tons(It was brought into position by building a ramp of four miles and elephants were used to pull the stones up). 3.Statue of Nandi(Sacred Bull is carved out of single rock) is 13 ft high and 16 ft long.
4.World first granite temple (More than 1,30,000 tons of granite). 5.Designated as UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Dam Kallanai called as Grand Anicut is considered as one of the oldest water structure in the world still in use. It was built by the Karikala Cholan one of the great Chola King.
The age of Chola empire is known as Golden age for Tamil literature. Great writer Kamban flourished during the reign of Kulothunga Chola III.His Ramavataram,popularly Known as Kamba Ramayanam is a great epic in Tamil Literature. Seevaga - Chintamani by Thirutakkatevar and Soolamani by Tolamoli are great writings during chola period. Trade was encouraged between Chola empire and China.Cholas used their ships to carry goods from West asia and Africa to China. In the beginning of 13th Century Chola dynasty started to decline due to rise of Hoysalas in the North and Southern Pandyas.Rajendra III was the last ruler to witness the fall of the Chola Dynasty. Will try to update this post with more information on Chola Dynasty in future.
Here we will be going through the process involved in creating a VFX shot from shoot to post production.
1.StoryBoarding
Once the script is finalised, the director will work on the storyboard of the film.
Storyboards are used to previsualize the shots and in identifying the problem before shooting
it, in the from of drawings.It will be helpfull even for budgeting of the film.
After Storyboarding is done, Director and Visual Effects supervisor will get an idea on how the shot
will be executed.So after storyboarding they will have a rough plan of number of VFX shots involved and what will be their complexity level.Adding VFX elements to a shot will have an impact on time and Budget.Below is an example of storyboard created by "Josh Sheppard"
Next stage is called previsualization(previz).In the below video you can view the previz done by "Russ Ang" for the movie "2012" directed my Roland emmerich.
Using previz the director can experiment with the camera position,camera movement,lighting, stage direction,editing ..without affecting the production cost.Previz can also be used as reference by the actors for their performance.Previz can add music ,sound,dialogue,editing to closely emulate
the final look of the movie.
Now before moving into next stage will have an insight about VFX Crew and their responsibilty.
VFX Crew
Visual Effects Supervisor - He is responsible for bringing the creative ideas of the director to life through visual effects.Most of the supervisors perform both creative and technical role.Supervisor will hired either by film production company or by visual effects company.
Usually there will be more than one supervisor.
1.VFX Supervisor from Production House who oversees the entire film.He coordinates with director and VFX Supervisors from other Vendors.
2.VFX Supervisor -
Work Onset - He supervise the Pricipal Photography to get VFX friendly Footage involving VFX Shots and get the required data from Set.
He will be accompanied by VFX Crew on set.
Below data will be collected onset
1.HDRI
2.Witness Camera data
3.Scan Data
4.Proper Chroma Shoot with Trackers
In house - oversees the production pipeline to make sure the CGI / VFX elements are created and integrated well.
3.Visual Effects Producer -
VFX Producer is responsible for the schedule and budgeting
of the visual effects department.He will be involved in early stage of pre - production to discuus the visual concept of the director.The scope of the VFX work after filming will be estimated with the help of VFX producer.
1. CG Supervisor - Oversees the 3D elements created for a shot and make sure compositors get the required data to execute the shot.
2. 2D Supervisor - Looks after the compositors and the integration of CG elements into the shot.
3. MoCap Supervisor - He will be taking care of the motion capture department.
Production Co-ordinators -Will co-ordinate between Producers,Supervisor and artist
and make sure shots are delivered on time.Taking care of Scheduling meetings,Daily reviews ,
Directors / Supervisor notes and overall database management.Theywill maintain the inflow and
outflow of data / information between clients and VFX company.
Will list out the 3D artist and 2D artist involved in giving life to directors vision.
3D Artist :2D Artist :R&D:
Matchmoving/Camera Tracking Roto/Paint/Prep Artist Shader Writer
Modeler Matte Painter Pipeline Programmer
Texture Painter Compositor
Rigger
Animator
Technical Director (TD) Pre-Production :
-Effects TD
-Creature/Character TD Concept Artist
-Fluids TD Previz
-Lighting TD Layout Artist
-Render TD
Crowd Artist
So now we got the Story board and Previs ready for our VFX shots.
While shooting lots of data and parameters need to be taken care.
Shot will be Planned and executed according to the VFX requirement,budget,time.
Below are some of the data collected during the shoot and the technique used :
1.3D Scanning - This method is used to collect data of the real world environment / object using Laser
scanning.
The Recent Technology in 3D Scanning is called LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging).
Below is an example of an environment created by "Risefx",Germany- using this Technology.
2.Motion Capture - In Motion capture the movement of the object or people(actor) is captured and mapped into 3D objects using marker points , so that the 3D model performs the same action of
the actor. Real-time motion capture system was first used in the movie "The Lord of the rings".
3.Emotion Capture / Performance capture - This method is used to overcome the hurdles in motion capture technique.
Example 1 : Real time 3D Scanning and Emotion Capture
Digital Domain used this Award winning Technology for the movie "The curious case of Benjamin Button" to feed Brad pitt face emotions to the Computer generated model.
Video Courtesy : TED Talk
Example 2 : Performance capture performed by actor serkis. Visual effects by Weta digital,Newzealand.
4.Creating HDR images:
HDR images are used to capture the illumination data of the environment at one particular point.This image is used to render the 3d objects with proper / realistic lighting information of the environment.
Please go through the below Tutorials created by Professor "Kert Witt" regrading creation and usage of HDR images.
5. Shooting Lens Grid:
A lens grid should be shot for each lens used during the shoot of the movie.These are measured and used back by VFX studios to undistort the scanned footage.
Image couteasy : eyefish.tv
Now we have collected all the datas while shooting which will be used by the VFX studios while creating the visual elements.
Below are the stages involved in creating 3D elements after the shoot of the movie.
1.Scanning the footage:
The filmed footage will be scanned and converted to required file format to start the VFX work.
Mostly DPX files, Cineon , pro res4444.
Now in digital era the above step is not required.
2.Green or Blue screen removal (Chroma Keying) :
To integrate CG elements along with Live action actors,the actors are shot in front of the blue screen or green screen.After the shoot the green screen is replaced with CG elements.If you want a part of actors body to be replaced with CG elements,the particular portion of the body will be wrapped with green screen.
3.Wire Removal / Paint : While shooting for some complex stunt sequence actor will be controlled by wires for Safety and for stunt choreography.These wires will be removed in post after shooting.
The Paint department is involved in cleaning the film plates.
4.Match Moving : This method is used to extract the camera information of a shot,which can be virtually recreated and used in 3D Application.While shooting Track points are placed in green screen.These track points are used as input for tracking the shot.
Below are the VFX Shots supervised by David Ridlen for the movie "Sin City" directed by Frank Miller.
Below is the VFX Highlight video of th movie "Alice in the wonderland".Its a VES presentation video by VFX supervisor "Ken Ralston".
5.Modeling :
Modelers will be involved in creating the environments and characters required for the movie.Modeling will be done based on the concept art,reference images from the director.
6.Texturing: Texturing is for adding details / surface texture / color to the created model. 7.Rigging:
In rigging hierarchical bones are created and attached to the created model.These bones are used to control(animate) the movement of the characters.
8.3D Layout /Animation:
3D Layout artist breaks down 2D story boards into 3D Shots and are responsible for below jobs
1.Building location using available models.
2.Blocking position of characters.
3.Camera angles.
4.Camera moves.
Animators defines the movement and deformation of the 3D model using keyframe Animation.In some cases motion capture is involved or combination of both. 9.Effects / CFX:
Effects departments is involved in generating dust,fire,water,rigid body simulation etc for the shot.
The cfx dept is responsible for simulating hair/cloth/fur/muscle.
10.Lighting and Rendering:
The animated model is lighted to bring out the character visible in camera.Lighting defines the style of the movie / shot. To learn more about lighting go through the below link.
After Lighting the shots are rendered out in required format.It is the method of converting 3D scenes into 2D images.
11.Matte Painting:
Matte painting is used to digitally recreate the environment of the shot.
Matte painting are used in
1.Set extension:
The virtual set for the shot will be created in computer graphics.These sets will be extended with the use of matte paintings.
2.Camera mapping:
In the above method the matte paintings will be static.Here to overcome that,matte paintings are projected on to the built geometry matching the scene. Here the image is no longer flat it has got some dimension to it. 12.Compositing:
The compositor will collect all the available images from various department to create the final look of the shot.
Below is the VFX Breakdown by MPC for the movie "John Carter "
I haven't described in detail about each department involved in process.Will try to add more data in future.
