Vector Based 2D Graphics tool-- Illustrator!

Worked on Adobe Illustrator and it was so smooth! Of course it wasnt a big file, but liked the way it worked and the options we have in it!
The user interface is strikingly similar to Adobe Photoshop except for some icons and options.

If you are wondering what is Illustrator and vector based graphics, vector graphics is the technique which completely removes any kind of pixellation which is visible in pixels of most of the images we see[like jpeg, png, etc..]

In SVG[Scalable Vector Graphics] format, we get the same quality and clarity of the image, no matter which level of zoom you are in!
So you can zoom in to 10000% and still find the sharp details just like they were at 100% or 25% zoom level!!
So, welcome to the "pixellation-less" world of vector 2D graphics!
Below is the simple svg image created by me!

The original SVG image is located here at Wikimedia Commons.


With love.. Anil

Lets give children a better life by joining hands with CRY-"Child Rights and You"..

Lets give children a better life by joining hands with CRY-"Child Rights and You".. 
Be human..Be a volunteer.

Independence special: Leader and Oye!

Watched Leader again, now on Maa tv, it is such a kind of movie which has a feel good feeling sans all the masala stuff.
Earlier, couldnt watch some parts of the movie due to a busy work
Overall its a very sensitive film, touching the obvious issues of corruption, cunning politics as well as casteism.
In a way, with it's simpler story and sensibilities, it feels better than Raajneeti!
Raajneeti is too much like an adulterated masala with too much spice added to it. It could have been a much better movie sans Ranbir and Katrina's love story!!

Another movie that has that fresh feeling is "Oye".
Amazing cinematography as well as realistic.
Pixelloid has done a remarkable work as seen in its behind the scenes video for this movie.
The compositing[mixing the virtual shots and the live action shots] is very neat and we can hardly tell which is real and which isnt!
Coming to the sun direct crisis that refuses to leave, we continue to miss UTV Bindass, UTV movies, UTV Action, WB and UTV World Movies.
All that we can do now is hope that sun direct sorts this issue soon enough to avoid further loss of customer confidence.

And another important development has been the frequent powercuts, which took 1 day break on 15th August on the eve of independence day.
This allowed me to render some of the first images of the project inspired by avatar!
Rendered the first 2-3 seconds which shows the logo of Anilmation with the text "An anilmation creation".

With love.. Anil

29 July 2010, Thursday

Update on the animation project:

By monday, I guess most of the texturing for navi1 was complete[90% approx].
Need to do it for navi2[neytiri] now..Same color scheme and strokes, but differences in proportion and details..
So, it shouldnt take much time to colour or make-up her..
Another thing worth mentioning: Shifting gears! From a pentium 4, 1GB ram to one with pentium 3, 128MB ram..
Guess this also teaches us to look at both extremes in the same light.
Never get over-excited over momentary happiness/joy nor distress in despair.
In short, level headedness.

And the performance in a photoshop test[creating a copy of image of a game menu in Permeative Technologies, Bangalore] on wednesday could have been better, not because some new tools can be used but because some steps could have been avoided or altered. 
Even working in Photoshop is a kind of art. 
Since there are several ways of doing it, you need to know which tool is best in the given circumstance and also need to be good in painting with the mouse.
Anyway, it was a good learning experience. Obviously, not the same could be said about the travel from Forum Mall to the bus station, which seemed to go on forever. Literally the "journey of a lifetime", fighting for every inch of available space in the packed bus in strange postures!!
Hope someone had "scaled out" that bus![in animation terminology!]

29 june 2010, tuesday

Having watched Raavan this tuesday, came to know why Raavan flopped so miserably and turned out to be second big disaster for BIG Pictures after its "kites" met a tragic end!

Seems like they are poised to make a heavy loss this fiscal!

And having seen Raajneeti the same day, found out how different these two huge films are!

It was almost like Mahaabhaarat vs Ramayan! And Mahaabhaarat won by a huge margin!

By the way, Videocon d2h has the best DTH package in comparision with any other service! 

Just imagine: all the best regional and hindi channels[GEC as well as all hindi movie channels], and all the infotainment channels[discovery, NGC, animal planet and History] are available in the basic pack for just 150!

And thats not all. There is also the english movie channel MGM added in to put in spice to the pack!

At first, it sounded like the d2h has gone crazy and giving top channels even in the south basic pack! And it certainly is the best pack by a long way!

Even the highest pack[called diamond pack] costs you only 250 odd bucks that has all the sports, english entertainment and movie channels, etc that you ever need!

As far as quality of equipment/service is concerned, not much information is available though. 

But the packs are the best. Quite sure that sun direct will also add more quality channels soon to counter d2h's offer!

So dth customers, you can watch out for some exciting news soon!

With love.. Anil

Irritant people and show off..

The culture of showoff had reached such heights that we take parties for granted.
A birthday party a few days back was more of a test for patience, a show of glitz and status than any enjoyable ceremony for the little one.
Personally speaking, there is a lot of fake faces put up in most of the parties, especially of those whom you know very little.
You just see the make-up covered faces of people who are as vulnerable and ordinary as any other inside.
There is nothing as ugly as a place full of fake and artificial smiles.
Thats precisely why I dont believe in such glitzy parties untill and unless its some close family/friend's ceremony.


And there are also those irritating, bugging people who give free advice to others as if they know each and every page of the Britannica Encyclopaedia.
And worse still, they even call them losers based on the path they are on[like "B.Sc/B.Com? oh..no. you should have done engineering/medicine"]. 
Let me be clear that they may be down for the time being, but not out.
Every day there is some goal. Sometimes we reach it, and sometimes we dont. But the beauty lies in the journey that we embark upon. 
As we get the feeling of achievement, the race towards our goal gets thrilling. It is similar to Cheetah's sprint in the wild plains of Africa.[The most thrilling scene that you can see in nature].
But in a rat race, many people compromise on many things to crook themselves into a hole and suffer the whole life.
So for those who think that I am out and done with, I guess they got the message across loud and clear.

Congratulations to the winners!!

With the prizes of deccan herald short story contest having been announced, its heartening to see that so many people were interested in writing!
Congratulations to the winners and eagerly awaiting to read their works in the coming issues of Sunday Herald!
Its been a nice experience while writing the short story, and there was never a moment when it seemed boring.
In fact, the later script writing for our acting session also involved lots of corrections and learnt so many things as we kept putting details into the basic story and making it entertaining rather than a documentary work!
All of it was exciting and amazing to say the least!
Of course the bigger challenge will be to extract the performances out of everyone to make it look good on the screen.

With love.. Anil

Lost in the ocean of Maya!

Not a day passes off without creative ideas coming up as to how the whole animation project[demo reel] can be shot!
A camera angle makes such a big difference that an ordinary looking scene can be made to look exhilarating and breathtaking!
This is where James Cameron's Avatar scores heavily over any other movie..Its not enough to just create lots of beautifull stuff in 3D.
It needs to be captured in all its visual glory whether giving the right lights at right places, bright colours or the camera movement and angles.
And one of the breathtaking shots of avatar is the shot where the birds dive down next to mountain heaven's height[during Jake's first flight]! Watching it on the silver screen, it looks like if they went crazy or what!! That shot shows the spirit, beauty of nature, energy and passion that the director had in his story!
Similar shot was in the all time master piece by the same director--Titanic. The shot where the ship races with the dolphins/killer whales takes the breath away and expresses the feeling of winning a race with the nature with the largest and most beautiful ship ever built then!
The camera again was spot on, giving thrilling moments to the audience!
It is shots like these that cant be missed when making a trailer! For now though, modelling keeps me engaged every moment!
The making itself is an experience to be enjoyed!


By the way, "New York" on max the other day was nice! Frankly speaking, I saw it without any great expectations, but the tale of 3 friends and the 9/11 effect was well told..
The screenplay was crisp and the movie moved at a good pace. And it was based on facts. A must watch movie for those who forget the other extreme of fighting terrorism-the innocents should never be hurt.

With love.. Anil

Movies that really make an impact and entertain!

There have been so many movies and so many more reviews, good or bad, or fair or unfair.
But there is one thing that Indian movies didnt try to do: welcome an innovative idea that tries to transform the common mindset.
When I say common mindset, it doesnt mean breaking our customs or forgetting our culture.
It means reminding ourselves of the fact that we are all humans before anything else.
We have the inherent urge to explore. We love. We hate. We are afraid. We fight back.
But we never had meaningless traditions by birth. Its all fed into us and brainwashed by our society and innumerable entertainment sources[even that is a part of the society].
For eg., with all respect to the makers of the early 1990s Telugu film "Chanti", which was aired on Gemini tv on tuesday evening, the movie had some terribly shocking scenes which insult the society in a very unrealistic way.
There are several ironies in the film some of which are even outright funny, but let me focus on one incident where the villains insult an innocent woman in the run up to the climax.
The whole village [numbering more than a hundred perhaps] become mute spectators to just 3 men who are seen as highly powerfull in the village.
I know this is a common sight in a zillion movies, but the most shocking depiction is when the same society pleads the woman not to go.
How the hell do they have the right to ask someone to stay back when they proved thenselves useless?
Do they want her to suffer the same thing again and again in the name of culture in the blind-deaf-dumb society like theirs?
Of course nothing is real in movies, but this scene is outright shocking because it goes to the extreme of unrealistic, sadistic, spineless depiction of society.
It shows how the entertainment media catch the weak point of the society and use it for their advantage/business.
And the censor board thinks that showing these scenes of insulting a society is better than showing heads rolling?
There have been so many paradoxes like Magadheera being given an A certificate despite not having a single scene of insult or shock.
Even the film "Mahatma" has been in the news last year because of a line in the song which says "Gandhi is not just a surname of Indira..Its ..."
The name Gandhi in fact stands for truth. It stands for more than a surname of some one, which is right and theres nothing insulting in it.

Some of the moments that really stir you up in some recent movies on set max are:
1. "Aaj main pehli baar ek angrej ko tiranga lehrate hue dekh rahaa hoon" the dialogue in Chak De when Kabir Khan sees for the first time an Indian tricolour being hosted by an Englishman during the women's hockey world cup campaign.
It makes a big impact on anyone who sees the movie. In fact the whole movie is one gem of a package from the director, who seems to have written the script not with a pen but with his heart and patriotism and love for hockey and sports in general!
Even the inspirational words from Kabir Khan to his team are amazing. They can be said in any situation to pump up your spirits in a big event like a WC final! One important feature of that dialogue is it never pleads you to do well. Rather just enjoy the game to the fullest during the whole game! Felt like giving a standing ovation for the whole team which made the movie!

2. So many dialogues in the movie "fanaa" are just so beautiful that they refuse to fade off ever! Personally the best was:
"Agar bhool se bhi humse koi bhool hui ho toh usko bhool samajhke bhool jaanaa. Lekin bhoolna bas us bhool ko. Bhool se bhi hume mat bhoolna!" cinematography and music are the strengths of the movie as well as the gracious depiction of love in this movie!
Taking all these factors together, its one of the most beautifull movies!

3. The camera work in the "haule haule" song of "Rab ne" is amazing and catchy.
The beginning shot showing SRK without any cut is probably the highlights of the movie!
The most important thing is the camera never loses its focus on the main character-Surinder singh! and follows him for quite a long time in the song..
It makes even the ordinary scene of the song look fabulous and attractive!
Even though Raj's character looks dumb, irritating and unappealing, it is Surinder's character that saves the day for "Rab ne.."


With love.. Anil

Jumbling up of a movie by Max!!

Rarely has anyone seen such a big goof up by a top class channel like SET MAX.
On sunday "mera movie", fanaa was being aired and everything went fine untill probably the third or fourth break.
After 1 hour or so, there was a jumbling up of the movie. The 10 minute climax was shown at around 9.10pm, which might have confused most of us as to how come the 2.5 hr movie got shortened to just 1.5 hr!
Then came the slew of previous parts where the story went backwards and ended with Aamir khan being given shelter by Kajol!! What a gem of a fumble!
MAX--"Jumble" bana de!" would have been an apt tag line at that moment!
Guess the bosses at MAX noticed it and avoid any such goof-ups in the future!
 
With love.. Anil