What to Expect in Visual Effects in 2019 & Beyond

The present technological advancement in movies have proven that almost nothing is impossible in the visual effects industry. With the tremendous growth of technology, day by day, there are no limits in filmmaking. We are already at a point where digital animation and CGI can look exceedingly similar to reality.

So what does the future has in the stores for VFX?

1. VFX will be used even more throughout the development, pre-production and filming process of a film. That’s the pretty obvious one!

2. The current VFX technologies are not only time consuming but also expensive. So the companies would be focusing not just to improve the quality but also to reduce the average cost of delivering a single shot. Right now the goal is to make it profitable enough to stay in business.

3. The distinction between Visual Effects shots and real-life shots will fade, further. An incredible number of visual effects shots are not even being noticed today. They go undetected as they are amazing. This gives more opportunities for creativity and storytelling to the filmmakers. For example, TV shows like The Walking Dead and movies like Fast and Furious involving car chase scenes use green screens for driving sequences.

4. VFX may still not be able to do everything 100% perfectly. Like the holograms used in I, Robot and Captain America they still pose a challenge which will hopefully be conquered with advancing software. Traditionally, the most difficult things to simulate are dust, water, smoke, fire, and light distortions.

5. Optimised work flow can be expected. Fully rendered animations are not real time animations, but hopefully with the advent of faster processors and better technology it will get closer to real time animation which is visually as perfect as offline rendered animation is now.

Did that go over your head? Pardon us. To present in simpler terms – the offline rendering process is usually much less performance-critical, so you have the option to use very expensive rendering techniques for better performance.

6. India may get more VFX. More and more Hollywood studios and directors are willing to outsource their post-production VFX work to Indian studios and companies. This means, there will be more job opportunities for the trained professionals who have completed job-oriented courses in VFX.

Do you see any more advancements in the VFX industry in the near future? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below

Why Building a Career in VFX Makes Sense

If you are an artist and wish to see your work on a big screen, Visual Effects aka VFX is a good career option for you. You can work on high-stake projects, associate with the topmost studios and climb up the corporate ladder to lead teams of talented VFX Artists.

With optimal technical and creative skills, you can work in the field of media & entertainment as a VFX professional. VFX is the art of combining computer-generated (CG) sequences with live-action footage to create scenes that are otherwise difficult, impossible, impractical or expensive to shoot in real life. The size of the VFX market in India alone is increasing rapidly. With many of the Hollywood studios outsourcing their projects to Indian VFX companies along with Indian studios themselves expanding their VFX departments, the number of VFX artists required annually is set to rise phenomenally.

Although a standalone course in VFX would open up numerous career opportunities, a VFX course combined with these courses by creative professionals such as Animators, Graphic Designers, Film Editors and Game Developers can add a significant value to the resume. There is no limit to the variety of career prospects available after taking a VFX course, from a reputed institute. Some of the most prominent job portfolios are:

1.    Rendering Artist

2.    Composting Artist or Compositor

3.    Roto Artist

4.    Layout Artist

5.    Lighting Artist

6.    Matte Painter

7.    Match Mover Artist

8.    Rigging Artist

9.    Animator (VFX)

10.  Concept Artist

As far as sectoral avenues are concerned, with the exponential growth of digital content, the following industries are going on a hiring spree for VFX Artists:

 

1.    Film, Television and OTT:

Most filmmakers today want to give their audience a larger than life experience of cinema. Each of such mega film projects requires hundreds of VFX artists. Programmes on Television and OTT platforms are equally active in terms of ensuring good quality visual effects.

 

2.    Advertising:

Advertisement companies are obsessed with motion graphics and visual effects, because they help to create eye-catching ads for their clients. The industry has been traditionally a big employer of VFX Artists.

 

3.    Animation:

Animation and VFX industries are very much complementary to each other. All animation companies hire VFX artists to jointly work on projects with animators. A course in Animation combined with another one in VFX is the perfect combination to make it big in the creative space.

 

4.    Gaming:

Be it on consoles, computers or mobile phones, video games have become all-pervasive, being played by people of all age groups. Gaming companies hire VFX artists for various tasks involved in the game development process.

 

5.    Corporate Presentations:

Companies these days tend to hire professionals to help them create aesthetic presentations or videos in order to convince their investors, customers, partners etc. VFX artists with a knack for designing could find tremendous opportunities in this area.

 

6.    Ed-tech: 

Ed-tech startups are one of the fastest growing startup companies. These companies are betting big on creators and VFX Artists to make their educational content more interactive, artistically pleasing and easy to understand.

Choosing a reputed animation and VFX training institute with a focused placement cell can help you land in one of the big names in one of these multi-billion dollar industries. All the best on your creative career path!

 

Can Animation Be Considered as an Art Form?

The things that usually come to our mind when we hear the word “Art” are paintings, sculptures or even music. But is that it? Has the scope of art expanded beyond that?

Art is a human activity that involves creative or imaginative talent to express beauty, emotions or ideas. The debate as to whether computer-aided images can be considered art is not new.  

It is now increasingly being accepted that an animation created on Autodesk Maya or any other software is as much an art as a painting made with a real brush and colours, as it involves a similar amount of skills, precision, perfection, aesthetics and designing capacity. 

The audience of animation movies and cartoons would agree. After all, the exquisite pictures and characters that we see in animation movies must have been created by some artist.

Conventional Art forms can be broadly classified as 

•    Visual Arts (Architecture, Painting, Sculpture)

•    Literary Arts (Fiction, Drama, Poetry, Prose)

•    Performing Arts (Dance, Music, Theatre)

•    Culinary Arts (Cooking, wine-making)

•    Media Arts (Filmmaking, Photography)

However, since the advent of computers in the latter half of the 20th Century, a new category of Art has emerged called New Media Arts. These include visual artworks that are designed and produced using new media technologies. Computer Graphics, Computer Animation, Digital Art, Internet Art, 3D Printing and countless others are all included in this modern art form.

The following characteristics of Animation give a strong argument for it being an art form:

Involves Creativity and Imagination

Animation is essentially a creative activity. It involves imagining new characters, objects environments, stories etc. and giving them different colours, shades, textures, expressions and a hundred such elements. 

Personal Skills 

To become an Animator some certain personal abilities and skills are required. An actor is not necessarily a good singer or a musician. What art a person is good at depends on their traits and interests.  

Practical Knowledge

All art forms revolve around the application of skills in practical life situations. For example, to be a singer, it is not enough to memorize all ragas, one has to apply the knowledge of ragas to sing different songs. Similarly, more than theoretical jargon, the animation is much more about the practical application of skills and techniques.

Animators must learn to apply various animation software and techniques that are taught in different animation courses from reputed institutes.

Requires perfection through practice

Perfection is something an artist can never truly achieve, but it’s something he or she constantly needs to strive for, through practice. To use a music analogy, a singer needs to do what is called riyaz, which is a regular exercise. Animation too requires constant practice by creating new projects, sharpening existing skills etc.

All this is to say that Animation is now universally considered as a piece of art and consequently animators deserve the same respect as artists. To get your worth as a professional animator, you should always look for an institute with a dedicated placement cell that can land you in one of the big companies in the animation industry and also keep you updated with recent industry trends.

Do You Need to Know How to Draw to be a 3D Animator?

Is drawing important for Animators? This is a frequently asked question by students pursuing a career in 3D Animation. Mostly, we get generic answers to this question. But here we delve into this topic deeper and twist the question a little to cover a broader aspect, “Is it required to be an artist to become a successful animation professional?”

To start with, we need to understand the 3D animation production pipeline. In a studio working on 3D animation production, we have separate departments for pre-production, modeling, texturing, animation, rigging, lighting, rendering, FX animation, compositing, and editing. 

Out of these above mentioned departments, rendering, editing, and FX animation fields generally don’t need any direct art medium expertise. Barring these departments, others are linked, directly or indirectly, with artistic forms like drawing, painting, photography, etc.

If you want to build a career as a pre-production artist, then a sound drawing skill is a must. You should be able to put your thoughts and your visualisation on paper or on to the computer screen through a digital tablet or mouse. As a character designer in the pre-production department, you may be asked to design characters, props, and BG Layouts. Or as a storyboard artist, you may be asked to make storyboards, for which you need to have good drawing skills. As a concept artist you may be required to do inspirational sketches and paintings. As an art or creative director, you may have to create the colour palette with the director for the final look of the film.

Modelers need to be well-versed in anatomy studies, which would help them to maintain mesh flow and proportion.

Texturing and lighting artists should have a good light and shadow, and colour sense. Experiences in painting or photography help to enhance these skills.

In the present industry scenario, lighting improvisations are done at the compositing stage too. Thus, it is essential that the artist has some inclination towards photography or painting.

A character animator must have a sound knowledge of posing and facial expressions. Gesture drawing is the stepping-stone for a good character animator.

A rigger applies joints and controls to the characters, thus he/she should be knowledgeable about the workings of how the anatomical mechanism works.

Animation, as an industry, provides enthusiasts various options to explore their creativity and project their ideas to the world. Not knowing how to draw is not a major roadblock. The key to this industry is a creative and imaginative mind. If you are creative, it’s time you get the skills to become an animator.

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