Workshop on VFX Compositing by Mr.Ganesh Shankar 2014 @ ICAT, Chennai

A Lead Compositor and Technical Director, Mr.Ganesh Shankar conducted a workshop on ‘VFX Compositing’, at the ICAT, Chennai campus on 9th of April, 2014. The workshop was conducted for the 2nd and 3rd year students of the VFX department. The session focused on the essential tools and industrial methods of keying and compositing by using leading compositing software. Mr.Ganesh Shankar also shared the usage of color correcting film plates and multi pass compositing. During the 4 hour workshop, the students had the opportunity to work on some industrial footage, enabling them to composite CG elements and live action footage, which they found to be very beneficial in understanding the concepts practically. Forthcoming workshops will follow up on Camera Projection techniques and Outdoor Shooting techniques.

Topics Covered:

Breakdown of BMW Commercial: Students were explained the various processes involved in creating the BMW commercial by showcasing the integration of live action footage with CGI elements.
Keying Process: The session continued by exploring the essential techniques of shooting green/blue screen footage and how to prepare them for keying. The importance of evaluating a shot by breaking it and adding multiple key for better result was explored. Students were also taught how to handle cine on and DPX footages.
Multi pass compositing: The session continued on how to render for multipass compositing and other critical factors that need to be considered during render from CGI packages. Later on, how to layer and fix in compositing for shot enhancement were discussed.
Camera Projection: During the end of session, the students were given an introduction of camera projection and its advantages, and were prepared for next session on camera projection.

Student's Reviews:

"The Compositing session was really easy to comprehend with respect to 3D elements and an in depth study of passes was shared. It was also helpful in the area of 3D rendering." Shreemud Chandrakant Dave – III UG Animation

"The workshop was really beneficial as Mr.Ganesh provided examples from his projects on CG compositing, which further helped in understanding how to composite a scene using CG elements in live action footage with different passes and channels." Ram Kamal SK - II UG Visual Effects

"The session was very informative, covering a comprehensive range of techniques which gave a better idea of the software and the workflow. I look forward to attend similar workshops in the future." Rachel Irene Connors - PG Visual Effects