Visual Effects

Visual effects (VFX) are the artificial imagery that is created, manipulated or enhanced to create a desired visual element in film, television, video games, advertising, and other media. VFX can be used to create anything from realistic explosions and fire, to imaginary creatures and locations, or even to enhance the natural surroundings of a shot. VFX artists use a range of tools and software to create their effects, including 3D modeling software, compositing software, and video editing software.

Visual effects have been used in films and television for over a century, with early examples including simple stop-motion animation and matte paintings. However, with the development of computer technology, VFX has become increasingly sophisticated and realistic. The use of VFX in modern movies and television shows is often so seamless that viewers may not even realize they are watching special effects.

Some examples of visual effects in popular movies include the creation of the characters and locations in the Star Wars films, the massive battle scenes in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the lifelike animals in the live-action Jungle Book movie. VFX are also used extensively in video games to create immersive and realistic environments.

Overall, visual effects are an essential part of modern media and play a significant role in creating the imaginary worlds that we enjoy in movies, television, and video games.

Motion capture:

Motion-capture (sometimes referred as mo-cap or mocap, for short) is the process of recording the movement of objects or people. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, medical applications, and for validation of computer vision[3] and robotics.[4] In filmmaking and video game development, it refers to recording actions of human actors, and using that information to animate digital character models in 2-D or 3-D computer animation.[5][6][7] When it includes face and fingers or captures subtle expressions, it is often referred to as performance capture.[8] In many fields, motion capture is sometimes called motion tracking, but in filmmaking and games, motion tracking usually refers more to match moving.

Matte painting:

A matte painting is a painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows filmmakers to create the illusion of an environment that is not present at the filming location. Historically, matte painters and film technicians have used various techniques to combine a matte-painted image with live-action footage. At its best, depending on the skill levels of the artists and technicians, the effect is "seamless" and creates environments that would otherwise be impossible or expensive to film. In the scenes the painting part is static and movements are integrated on it.

Animation:

Animation is a method in which figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most animations are made with computer-generated imagery (CGI). Computer animation can be very detailed 3D animation, while 2D computer animation can be used for stylistic reasons, low bandwidth or faster real-time renderings. Other common animation methods apply a stop-motion technique to two and three-dimensional objects like paper cutouts, puppets or clay figures. Commonly the effect of animation is achieved by a rapid succession of sequential images that minimally differ from each other. The illusion—as in motion pictures in general—is thought to rely on the phi phenomenon and beta movement, but the exact causes are still uncertain. Analog mechanical animation media that rely on the rapid display of sequential images include the phénakisticope, zoetrope, flip book, praxinoscope and film. Television and video are popular electronic animation media that originally were analog and now operate digitally. For display on the computer, techniques like animated GIF and Flash animation were developed.

3D modeling:

In 3D computer graphics, 3-D modeling is the process of developing a mathematical representation of any surface of an object (either inanimate or living) in three dimensions via specialized software. The product is called a 3-D model. Someone who works with 3-D models may be referred to as a 3-D artist. It can be displayed as a two-dimensional image through a process called 3D rendering or used in a computer simulation of physical phenomena. The model can also be physically created using 3D printing devices.

Rigging:

Skeletal animation or rigging is a technique in computer animation in which a character (or other articulated object) is represented in two parts: a surface representation used to draw the character (called the mesh or skin) and a hierarchical set of interconnected parts (called bones, and collectively forming the skeleton or rig), a virtual armature used to animate (pose and key-frame) the mesh.[9] While this technique is often used to animate humans and other organic figures, it only serves to make the animation process more intuitive, and the same technique can be used to control the deformation of any object—such as a door, a spoon, a building, or a galaxy. When the animated object is more general than, for example, a humanoid character, the set of "bones" may not be hierarchical or interconnected, but simply represent a higher-level description of the motion of the part of mesh it is influencing.