Author: Ramji P S

Ramji digs into the development of motion capture, and the effect it has had on the creative freedom for filmmakers of modern cinema In the first two parts, we saw how special effects involved mostly in-camera techniques, and CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) started to enter from early 90s. Nineties was the cusp when in-camera effects slowly started to give way to digital effects. Several pathbreaking films used digital technology effectively in creating complete awesomeness. The digital effects domain was nascent, and several techniques or software needed to be invented just to achieve a specific requirement. This opened up several job…

Ramji further explores the history of visual effects, and its impact on the future of cinema as we know it We saw how the special effects evolved from the very beginning of the movie history. The in-camera and other optical effects were used to create breathtaking visuals of those times. In this part, let us see some of the other techniques that evolved in this domain. You will believe a man can fly Let us take another of my favorite film Superman (1978). This film was a big challenge to the special effects department to make convincing effects especially for…

Ramji delves into the history of visual effects, and its impact on the history and the future of cinema as we know it Movies are magical! The awe and wonder of watching a movie in a theater has no parallel. Nowadays, hardly any film comes without what is called VFX, an abbreviation for Visual Effects. With the advent of computer graphics in the late 80s and early 90s, VFX has become an inevitable part of films. And it only gets bigger and better every year. In this series of articles, let us take a bird’s eye view of some of…

Ramji finds out how the aesthetics of our age are being revolutionized by the algorithmic influence of artificial intelligence Look at the above painting. Doesn’t it look like an unknown work of Rembrandt? Would you believe it if I said that the painting was generated by an engine driven by artificial intelligence (AI)? And what if I say that painting was created just by carefully chosen words? Yes, words. Here is what I typed in: “Portrait of a beautiful young woman, magnificent palace, Rembrandt style lighting, hyper realistic, cinematic” They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, in…

Ramji finds out how the retail industry is set to be revolutionized by Augmented Reality Augmented Reality, or AR as it is often shortened to, is the technology that superimposes digital content over your physical environment when viewing through the camera of your smartphone or tablet. This gives a composite view and an illusion of digital content being present in the real environment. You can virtually walk around the digital model while staying in the comforts of your living room. The big advantage of this technology is that the user does not need any special device to experience it. Just…

Step aside Multiverse, this is the age of Metaverse. Immersive experience, virtual world, augumented reality et al are terms bounded in the sphere of Metaverse. But what is this strange sounding term and what consequences does it hold for our life and times? Ramji finds out and gets you in on the action that is the future of our world Metaverse! This is the recent buzzword across the world in recent years. It gained more popularity last year when Mark Zuckerberg told his employees about an ambitious new initiative. He used the term ‘Metaverse’ to build an interconnected set of…

Ramji writes on the ‘Unreal Unity’ of technology and art… The highly acclaimed Unreal and Unity3D engines are among the most popular tools with employed by the augmented Reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and gaming professionals. But what in fact are these ‘engines’ and how is this new technology revolutionising cinema? In this article let us see what powers these new age solutions and how these technologies are changing filmmaking. Imagine you are playing a computer game which is usually a set of sequences that appear at random, and you, the player, react or engage with them. All these happen…

What sounds like the cutting edge of science fiction is no fantasy; it is happening right now as you read this article Imagine getting trained in a piece of equipment that is part of a critical production pipeline. What if you can get trained while you are in your living room? Sounds fantastic, eh. Well, I am not talking about e-learning or video-based training. Rather what if the machine is virtually in your living room while you walk around it and get familiar with its features? What if you can interact with it and operate it while being immersed in…