Home » Community » Interviews » Sudeepto Bose Talks VFX In Mumbai, India

Q: What made you decide to become a VFX artist?

When I was a 10 year old school boy, I saw Jurassic Park. I kept wondering how on earth that would be possible…I believed it was some scale manipulation with existing lizards…. it definitely clicked with me then. Before I could even think of VFX (before graduation), I simultaneously worked as a part time music arranger and composer, creating stock for The FX Factory. It was then that I was exposed to the world of VFX. I spun my wheels for a few years with my specialization in Accounts, I never did find anything I was interested in with commerce. While I was creating stock, I was impressed with such feature films as Spiderman. I finally wanted to pursue something within the computer graphics world. It was later after joining The FX Factory that I was exposed to Digital Fusion and, since then, nothing else has inspired me as much.

Q: What artist/event/person inspires you?

As an intern, I knew the only source I could depend on for the technical part of the software, would be the manual. I brushed up on my habit of reading them and featured R&D. I cherished working with Shaily (now with Prime Focus) as he encouraged me. Also, I remember him creating and sharing awesome tricks/techniques which left me with vivid impressions. I am also inspired by his journey. He still keeps doing the same great work. Quite a few people inspire me on the forums: Theodor Groeneboom, Gregory Gelzakos, and Chad Capeland, to mention a few.

Q. How long have you been working with Fusion as an artist? Where did you learn your compositing skills, and how did you first get started using Fusion?

Ever since I stepped into the VFX community, around 2003, I believe I got exposed to the best tool, Fusion. It has led me to create some really stunning shots. Normally a VFX artist would require a combination of various tools but I do it all in Fusion. Since Fusion 5 was introduced, I could not only explore my compositing skills but features like 3D Tools and 3D Particle Suite. I have created shots in Fusion which otherwise would have been delivered with really shabby quality or consume much more time.

Q: Tell me about the VFX community in Bollywood.

As far as I can see, the Indian entertainment and media industry is constantly experiencing increased growth, it is growing year-to-year. The adoption of visual effects in films, TV, and advertising is at an unprecedented high. The Indian market now understands the complexity and that the demand for VFX is rising along with sophisticated expectations by the audience. Major Indian visual effects facilities in Bollywood have established branches in the West and are benefiting from global production chains. Right now, a lot of the work that was earlier outsourced from the West to India was insistent work but now India is starting to develop very intricate visual effects within. Indian post-facilities have initialized sharing work on major feature films with multiple houses, similar to the western model, which enables higher quality work to get done since each facility can focus on a limited part of the overall show. Bollywood has gradually started using state-of-the-art tools and pipelines like those used in Hollywood.

Q: India post production is a tremendous market and many great projects have come out of Bollywood in the past few years. What films have you contributed to in the past?

I've had an opportunity to work on a few really great feature films with good scope of work:  No Smoking, U Me Aur Hum, Golmaal Returns, Sunday, Fashion, and Shakalaka Boom Boom, to name a few.

Q: You were nominated for Best Visual Effects in the 53rd annual Filmfare Awards for your film No Smoking. How did Fusion aid in your work on this project?

No Smoking, being a particularly dark subject film, required very surreal effects. It had great scope of work; Luma-Distorted/Displaced effects similar to Predator, certain effects where the character evaporates like smoke, finger replacements, and more. In the shots where the lead actor had to evaporate like smoke, Fusion's Particle Suite was used extensively. We had worked with various options but Fusion was able to really pull the effect together without the necessity of any other tool or software. Its image-based emission performed at optimum speed. The film also had a sequence of shots where the actor's finger had to be shown chopped off and the matchmove of CGI finger. It included, importing of FBX files (finger model) and later projection of the texture, matchmove, generate translucencies, etc. as everything was finally rendered from Fusion. Initially after a great amount of R&D, we discovered impossibilities, pertaining to extraction of the matchmove data. But using Fusion's custom tool, basic expressions and a few manual adjustments, I could manage a decent 3D matchmove within Fusion for finger replacement sequences. It thus made shots that should had been scraped or edited usable in the film. Recently, for the project U Me Aur Hum, Fusion played a vital role rescuing the task of simulating froth being generated at the front bottom of the cruise ship and cloth simulation based on displacement maps, thus bridging the gap of 3D artists. This show was completely scanned at 4K resolution and had the need for optimization tasks such as creating proxies via scripting abilities. Each project file contained hundreds of nodes processed at 4K, consisting of island cleanups, sky replacements (12K plates), 3D particle simulation, and cloth simulation using displacement maps. All the compositing was done within Fusion using its 2D and 3D space tools and successfully rendered via network rendering. I also composited a day-for-night shot for a feature film, by modeling a few parts of the Delhi Red Fort, using displacement maps and then I used it as a light pass for the composite. To be really frank, the only feature I missed or think would have executed similar massive tasks at a flying speed, is the ROID feature. I'm really thankful to the eyeon team for integrating this feature in Fusion 6. It will not be any bodies wish now, it is reality.

Q: What are some of your favourite tools in Fusion?

The Custom Tool can never be beaten, apart from this, my personal favorites are Text+, Color Corrector, VariBlur, FastNoise, Channel Boolean, Tracker, Displace, and of course, the 3D Tools, Particle Suite…Modifiers, Macros, and Scripting abilities can only make a shot complete.

Q: What trends do you see emerging in visual effects? How do you see the role of the VFX artist changing, and where do you see yourself in 10 years?

I feel that within the visual effects industry, which is so technology oriented, the more tools which are available allow an artist to flex his abilities, the more the possibilities emerge with optimum results. One shall always be able to create one's own set of possibilities with a blend of the existing technology in the tools. I seriously see customization as ‘the rising generation’ now, as every house, project, and shot has to be approached in its own unique way. This forces one to use only the available tools which actually limit the process. The scripting abilities within Fusion are very mature ones and create infinite possibilities. The role of the VFX artist is constantly changing. Earlier artists had no choice of options to manipulate their process. There was one point in time when I found myself completely dependent on hardware capabilities but today, with a smarter approach, one can definitely customize a solution for optimizing processes, with similar hardware. The eyeon team is continuing to encourage artists by integrating intelligent software architecture. This allows the artist to create solutions and not completely depend on anyone else. Well, in 10 years from now I'm not sure where I will be. As time flies by I will deliver some stunning visual effects and if that satisfies me, I shall surely look into creating more.

Q: Can you tell me what project you are working on now?

For almost eight months, I have been the lead compositor on the team working on Toonpur Ka Superhero. We have been creating proxies, building macros, setting up optimization scripts, and designing and implementing final shots. The completion date is for Q4 of 2009. I have also had the opportunity to manage some VFX shots for London Dreams. The shots include camera flashes (particle based) integrated with a CGI cheering crowd.

Please visit Sudeepto's website at  www.sudeepto.com.

 

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