Hasta La Motion!

Wanda Diaz-Merced, a blind astrophysicist from Puerto Rico, studies the universe through sound and believes it has it’s own harmony.

India’s premium and largest mobile game publisher, Nazara Games today announced its investment in Moong Labs a leading developer of realistic 3D cricket simulation games.

Moong Labs had last year entered into a publishing partnership with Nazara Games to publish their realistic simulation mobile cricket game on Virat Kohli, the current Indian cricket team captain. Virat Super Cricket and Epic Cricket are the two games published by Nazara under partnership with Moong Labs.

Taking the partnership with Moong Labs forward, Nazara Games has invested an undisclosed amount in Moong Labs wherein Moong Labs will focus on augmenting their game engine and develop games which can be globally successful offering realistic cricket simulation experience akin to what soccer fans get from mobile games such as FIFA.

According to Nazara Games CEO Manish Agarwal, “I will like to thank Samit and his team at Moong labs for this great partnership over the last one year and we are confident that this partnership will bring new, innovative game experience for the mobile cricket game fans across the world”

“The Global Cricket mobile gaming market is underserved within the sports mobile gaming category unlike soccer or baseball or basketball. We at Nazara are committed to investing or incubating in development studios which have shown an unappalled growth in the mobile cricket game space. We are confident that Samit and his team at Moong labs will garner lion share of $100 million revenue global opportunity for mobile cricket games in coming years.”

He further adds, “We believe in their team’s idea of ‘not just making a game but changing the landscape of mobile cricket gaming globally’ and that’s what excites us to make this investment in Moong Labs.”

Commenting on the investment the Moong Labs head of mobile gaming Samit Babbar said  “We are very excited about our partnership with Nazara, who share our vision of bringing ultra-realistic game experience on mobile for cricket fans across the world. We want to elevate the notion of playing a game to a level, where you can experience all the dynamism and fluidity of a real world cricket match. Truly immersive experience requires authentic and realistic simulation, and that’s what we aim to bring to cricket fans – if it happens in a real match, you’re likely to experience it in our game.

We have built proprietary algorithms inside our game engine that will enable us to provide next generation visual and auditory experience on mobile devices to everyone”

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Karnataka IT, BT and science and technology minister Priyank Kharge has confirmed that Bengaluru is all set to play hosts to the first ever mega global technology summit in November 2017.This landmark move by the state of Karnataka will no doubt bolster the AVGC industry.Having witnessed ground breaking evolution in technology, the IT,BT government machinery of Karnataka has come to a decision to scrap all the trivial events in favour of one, mega summit that would possibly have a global reach.

Priyank Kharge said,“Be it IT, BT, nano, animation, gaming. There are so many technologies that have evolved. So we thought it is better to have one anchor event for the entire state and make it a global event.” In fact, he has also divulged that the brains behind this huge idea are some of the big players from the industry, such as Ravi Gururaj, Kris Gopalkrishnan, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw as well as Nasscom, who suggested this scheme to him.

IT, BT and Science and Technology minister Priyank Kharge

Talking of all benefits that this summit would bring to the Garden city of India, Priyank beamed, “It will enhance Bengaluru’s brand as innovation and knowledge hub for emerging technologies.”

Only recently had Karnataka renewed its AVGC policy, introducing newer schemes and stashing aside huge amounts to boost the AVGC sector in the state. And now, with the introduction of world summit, even sky doesn’t seem the limit for Karnataka in its progress scale.

While several small scale events happened independently, the summit will house all these events at once with separate segments dedicated to technology sectors, thereby broadening their reach and also conducting the events on a greater platform.

Onwards and excelsior!

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Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood’s all new half hour special episode “King Daniel for the Day” will premiere on PBS Kids on 4 September. It will be followed by the launch of three additional grrr-iffic episodes of the Emmy nominated animated series from The Fred Rogers Company.

In “King Daniel for the Day”, Daniel Tiger is curious about what it is like to be a king. There is only one way to find out and King Friday dubs Daniel “King for the Day!” on his royal mission. Daniel discovers that the most important part of a king’s job is being kind to his neighbours.

In addition to tuning-in on PBS Kids, families and preschoolers can snuggle up and watch the special for free on PBS Kids website and via the PBS Kids video app. All the new episodes will be available on the PBS Kids 24/7 channel and live stream.

Still from the episode “King Daniel for the Day”

Below are descriptions for the week of new Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood programming:

Monday, 4 September

King Daniel for the Day (half-hour special): Daniel Tiger is curious about what it’s like to be King.

Tuesday, 5 September

Firefighters at School: The volunteer firefighters of the neighborhood of make-believe make a special school visit to explain what they do for the students. Daniel and his friends discover that a person can be many different things, including a doctor and a firefighter – even at the same time!

Daniel’s Doll: Daniel receives a new doll from his Grandpere, and he can’t wait to pretend to be the daddy. When Katerina and O insist that Daniel pretends to be Tige-y the Adventure Tiger instead, Daniel reminds them that you can be more than one thing.

Still from the episode “King Daniel for the Day”

Wednesday, 6 September

Daniel’s Very Different Day: Daniel was expecting to have a special picnic at Katerina’s house, but the day doesn’t turn out quite as he had planned. Daniel learns how to adapt when his routine changes.

Class Trip to the Library: Daniel and his friends are excited to go on a field trip to the library, but they arrive to find that it’s closed. Together, they realise that when plans change, they can do things in a different way. Strategy: Things may change and that’s okay. Today we can do things a different way.

Thursday, 7 September

Daniel Loves Tigey: Daniel gets upset when Margaret spills juice on his favourite stuffed animal, Tigey. Daniel finds out how he can make himself feel better when he’s upset.

Daniel Needs Tigey at School: Daniel is having a hard day at school, but he knows just how to make himself feel better- by hugging his Tigey!

The post ‘Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood’ special episode to premiere on 4 September on PBS Kids appeared first on AnimationXpress.

While it may seem extremely cool to don a helmet with a head-mounted camera and shoot, motion capture is a technique that involves an entirely different level of complexity. James Cameron’s Avatar beautifully used the technology for the CGI created characters of the Na’vi tribe; and the Planet of the Apes series exploited the technique successfully with Andy Serkis’ Ceaser becoming the most memorable character in the film.

With the amount of research, training and skilled execution that comes with using this technology, it is an equal amount of dare to execute it for a TV show. And this dare has been taken up by Abhimanyu Singh’s Contiloe Pictures for their upcoming mythological TV show Vighnaharta Ganesh, making it the first TV show in India to use motion capture.

Why Motion Capture (mocap)

“Whenever Ganpati has been shown on screen, you will see makeup done to convert his human face to an elephant face,” said Contiloe Pictures CEO Abhimanyu Singh. “It looks odd,” he added, and argued that the form of an elephant’s face cannot be done just by applying makeup on human’s face. “That is why we have used mocap.”

The technique is used for the elephant head of Ganesh in the show, and will be seen from the third or fourth episode.

Inception of the Show

“When we were discussing the show with Sony TV, Danish Khan, the EVP and business head said that the unique part about the show should be to replicate Ganpati exactly the way we have seen him,” which got them thinking on how to achieve that. Singh then got the VFX and make up team involved and carried out various tests.

Then began the search for vendors that offered the technology. After a detailed research, Contiloe zeroed in on Faceware Technologies, an innovator in markerless 3D facial motion capture solutions. “We discussed with them, sent the model out, used the data that they had, did a couple of tests and saw that yes, this was happening,” shared Singh, explaining that the R&D procedure took them nearly six months to be able to determine what the technology will offer and how they will leverage it.

Training and Getting Used to the Technique

Contiloe has purchased the equipment and software needed for mocap from Faceware. In addition, experts from Faceware had come down to India to train the team of Vighnaharta Ganesh for three days, on the usage of software and hardware.

The teams hold multiple meetings before the shoot to discuss how to go about the technique for the shots.

Procedure and Execution

The boy who plays Ganesh has to first act at the shoot after which the footage of his final shot is sent to Harsh and Hari, the two men that have been assigned with the execution of the technique. They have a sample script to give them an idea of the expressions they need from the actor.

The actor wears the facial motion capture helmet with the head mounted camera system. A wireless transmitter in the belt connects to a wireless receiver. The receiver is connected to the recorder and monitor present with Harsh and Hari. Through the monitor, they can see the performance as well as get an idea of the framing. When all is checked, they go ahead with the recording.

The final take of the actor is edited and the data is extracted using the Faceware proprietary software for transferring it to 3D. This data is then put on the CG face of Ganesh.

For a 20-minute episode, one full day is needed for recording in mocap. And according to Harsh and Hari, per shot processing takes longer than that. In case of issues faced with the software or additional doubts, Faceware’s online centre comes to aid.

Integrating Mocap Data to the CG Model

The VFX team have the CG model of the elephant head created. This model is rigged and textured to make it look like a human face. “The VFX artists have a 3D CG model of Ganesh ready, to which they apply the mocap data,” mentioned VFX supervisor Deepak SV.

Through mocap, they only get movements of eyes, lips and cheeks. The trunk and other elements of the face have to be animated manually. They have a library of emotions for the CG model of Ganesh as generating expressions on the model is time consuming.

For wider shots, animatronics and prosthetics are used for the trunk and elephant head. CG head with mocap data is used for close-up shots.Nearly 40 artists are working on the head, which in itself is sufficient to explain the complexity of the task.

Experience and Challenges

“In the earlier TV shows where Ganesh has been shown, there was no movement seen in the trunk and ears. Ganesh eyes have been shown as human eyes and not like elephant eyes. Hence, creating a Ganesh that is never seen before has been the greatest challenge,” expressed series director Vaibhav Muthu, who has also directed Maharana Pratap, Sankatmochan Mahabali Hanuman and Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s pilot for Contiloe.

“Translating human emotions to elephant face is the biggest challenge technically,” highlighted Deepak. “Proportions change with the heads.” Also, Vighnaharta Ganesh being a daily show, the deadlines are strict. Timing constraint is also a major challenge. “The central character of the show is in mocap, so we must deliver that much quantity of work with quality.”

Apart from the challenges, the experience for Muthu and Deepak has been a refreshing one. “It is difficult and time consuming but very interesting,” exclaimed Muthu while Deepak said, “It is complex but wonderful.”

Keeping the budget under wraps, the show-helmer Abhimanyu Singh confirmed that the costs are substantial. With about 40 people working on the head of Ganesh, one can imagine the amount of time, effort and resources needed to breathe life into the character.

The mocap technology is still at a nascent stage of use in India, but with Contiloe Pictures breaking barriers and dodging all odds to set a trend, it will only inspire and encourage Indian animation and VFX houses to experiment with it.

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