It is a myth that motion capture technology involves huge costs and takes a lot of time to execute. Coimbatore based Realworks Studios India has produced a 3D motion capture animation opening sequence for the upcoming Tamil film Urumeen. From the makers of Ranadheeran, a 3D animated short which they had created as a tribute to Rajinikanth’s Kochaidaiiyan, Realworks has added another feather to its hat by using motion capture and hand animation techniques with low cost and efficient quality.
An Axess Film factory production and directed by Sakthivel Perumalsamy, Urumeen features the story depicting three different eras. The movie has visual effects in various scenes done by Cerebrums Studio. But, the initial scene of the movie has a battle sequence which has been entirely executed using motion capture and simple hand drawn animation.
A team of 13 members worked continuously for 45 days. Realworks Studios India, director of operations, Sivaprasad Velayudhan says, “Most of the scenes were shot and produced in our studio at Coimbatore itself. Apart from that, all the motion capture scenes were shot at various locations at Coimbatore.” Softwares like Blender and Gimp were used to create motion capture of the background and the army while hand animation was used to create the acts of the hero.
Having the mindset that animation and motion capture demands huge investments and time ironically; the main reason to use motion capture in this film was to cut down the production costs and the time frame. Sivaprasad proudly claims, “The cost was comparatively low as we had a small team, no software licensing costs and no travel costs for sets and costumes. We used open source softwares to animate the visuals.”
As per Sivaprasad, scenes like the walk cycles, the soldiers running, falling and fighting were created for one character and then replicated for multiple. Many cameras were positioned to capture every angle to produce a fundamental level of motion capture.
Producing Ranadheeran as a tribute to Rajnikanth, Sivaprasad admits that Ranadheeran was an in-house experiment as Realworks wanted to check its capability for a full length 3D animated feature. And it worked well! Venturing into films, Realworks strives to change the mind set of people that animation is expensive and level of animation abroad cannot be produced in India. Sivaprasad urges, “If creativity and effort work together, then costs, time and quality is well maintained.” In fact he says, “The cost is low and quality is better. We are not claiming that we are better than international players but we have the ability to produce quality work which is cost effective.”
Starring Bobby Simha, Reshmi Menon and Kalaiyarasan, Urumeen is set to hit theatres on 14 November 2015.