A year in making: photoreal CGI mastery behind SS Rajamouli’s ‘Varanasi’ announcement video

The announcement video for S. S. Rajamouli’s upcoming magnum opus Varanasi is a three-minute visual showcase offering audiences an early glimpse into the film’s expansive world. The team unveiled the title at a larger-than-life GlobeTrotter event in Hyderabad, attended by lead actors Priyanka Chopra, Mahesh Babu, and Prithviraj Sukumaran.

Visual-effects veteran Srinivas Mohan, who previously collaborated with Rajamouli on Baahubali: The Beginning and RRR, returns as the VFX producer and supervisor for this ambitious project.

Speaking to Animation Xpress, Mohan revealed that the VFX team began work on the announcement video in October 2024, initially planning for a January 2025 debut. They partnered with Indian studios Mistyman Studios, Viskefi, Phantom FX, Gimpville, and Meta VFX to bring Rajamouli’s vision to life. The process started with black-and-white animatics created by the production’s in-house concept artist to establish the environments, camera language, and the presence of the hero, Mahesh Babu.

“One of the core creative ideas was to present the world of Varanasi in extreme slow motion at 400 fps instead of the usual 24 fps. Every element moves in slow motion, but the camera travels at real-time speed so the audience can absorb the grandeur and micro-details of each moment,” Mohan shared.

Let’s make this massive together….#VARANASI 💥💥 pic.twitter.com/h1LIlRci5j

— Varanasi (@VaranasiMovie) November 16, 2025

From a VFX standpoint, he said, the project posed one of their biggest challenges: nearly every shot is fully CG, yet the director demanded a completely photorealistic look—far from anything stylised. Except for the hero plate of Mahesh Babu sitting on a bull (shot on a motion-base rig against a green screen), everything on screen is CGI.

As they began building characters and environments at this level of realism and scale, the team quickly realised what “global film” expectations truly meant. They evaluated every shot with a global cinema lens- frame by frame, detail by detail.

“As we added assets and began animating, each review revealed new layers of work. Shots needed more texture detail, more FX nuance, more subtlety in lighting and motion to feel photoreal at 400 fps. Department HODs- from cinematography to production design to costumes, continuously contributed to ensure every frame aligned with the film’s vision,” he said.

The 3D scenes grew increasingly heavy, FX simulation times multiplied, and render times soared. Individual frames often took over 20 hours to render, with some shots going through more than 90 versions before the team was fully satisfied. What was initially estimated as a three-month sprint evolved into nearly a year-long effort to meet Rajamouli’s expectations.

The final announcement video features 10 fully CGI shots and three CG bull shots with Mahesh Babu integrated from live-action plates.

Mohan concluded by thanking all the VFX artists and technicians across the partnering studios. “No AI was used in creating these visuals, every frame is built using traditional CGI workflows, artist-driven design, and countless hours of iteration. This announcement is just the beginning.”

The team is now focused on pushing the visual boundaries even further as they move toward the release of Rajamouli’s ambitious project Varanasi, currently slated for summer 2027.