Hassan Taimur's Simulated VFX Production Workshop

Simulated VFX  Workshop at SCAD Savannah

I was really glad and fortunate to be part of simulated studio workshop hosted by Mr.Hassan Taimur. The exercise gave me and many other students a good understanding of how things work in a studio environment.

The exercise was will structured different teams were formed out of students focusing on different disciplines but every group was staffed such that there consisted of FX, lighting modeling –texturing and compositing enthusiastic  students. The groups were handed out a set of 6 storyboards for a spot where we were expected to select one storyboard and create at least 3 shots for the spot (15sec spot around 360 frame).

 

I was part of a group of 4 students and we decided were going to make the spot of Efire, which was an electrical company. The brief and story board given to us was as follows “Fireflies swarm together to eventually form the company’s logo at the end. Look of fireflies is important must be able to sell the idea of environment around the fireflies” 

With reference with the story board our team started discussing about what role one plays in the team? What shots are to be worked on and in what order? What platforms are to be used in creating the spots ? what props and models are to worked on ? and so on. 

Although like all the teams our team took its share of time in knowing our new team mates, doing brainstorming and collecting the required the references to start on. Once the required resources to start the project where acquired everyone in the team started work on their assigned spots. I guess not knowing the strengths of their fellow team mates was the biggest disadvantage that everyone faced. But soon everyone got into their designated roles and started working collectively on the spots.

I was tasked with the modeling and texturing of the environment and animation of the firefly. There were critique on team’s progress at regular intervals conducted by Hassan and fellow SCAD facility to guide the teams.

Nearly 2 hours close to the deadline I we go all the art work in place with respect to provided story boards, we rendered out few test shots to check the flow of the project and the snaps of the art work is as follows.

 

The Primary software’s platform that we worked on were Nuke, Houdini, Maya, Photoshop. By the evening most of the teams got together their effects, simulations and artwork in place to put together a proposal for a spot. Not only Hassan and the faculty but also the students were amazed on what they have created in such a short duration of time.   

Although there was only one winning team in the end but everyone waked away with some valuable experience. Which I am sure will stay with them for a long time. After the final Critique on works, everyone bid farewell to Hassan and went back to their routine.