What is ISO

In very basic terms, ISO is the level of sensitivity of your camera to available light. The lower the ISO number, the less sensitive it is to the light, while a higher ISO number increases the sensitivity of your camera. The component within your camera that can change sensitivity is called “image sensor” or simply “sensor”. It is the most important (and most expensive) part of a camera and it is responsible for gathering light and transforming it into an image. With increased sensitivity, your camera sensor can capture images in low-light environments without having to use a flash. But higher sensitivity comes at an expense – it adds grain or “noise” to the pictures. Every camera has something called “Base ISO“, which is typically the lowest ISO number of the sensor that can produce the highest image quality, without adding noise to the picture. On most of the new Nikon cameras such as Nikon D5100, the base ISO is typically 200, while most Canon digital cameras have the base ISO of 100. So, optimally, you should always try to stick to the base ISO to get the highest image quality. However, it is not always possible to do so, especially when working in low-light conditions. Typically, ISO numbers start from 100-200 (Base ISO) and increment in value in geometric progression (power of two). So, the ISO sequence is: 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400 and etc. The important thing to understand is that each step between the numbers effectively doubles the sensitivity of the sensor. So, ISO 200 is twice more sensitive than ISO 100, while ISO 400 is twice more sensitive than ISO 200. This makes ISO 400 four times more sensitive to light than ISO 100, and ISO 1600 sixteen times more sensitive to light than ISO 100, so on and so forth. What does it mean when a sensor is sixteen times more sensitive to light? It means that it needs sixteen times less time to capture an image!

3D layer interactions, render order, and collapsed transformations

The positions of certain kinds of layers in the layer stacking order in the Timeline panel prevent groups of 3D layers from being processed together to determine intersections and shadows.

A shadow cast by a 3D layer does not affect a 2D layer or any layer that is on the other side of the 2D layer in the layer stacking order. Similarly, a 3D layer does not intersect with a 2D layer or any layer that is on the other side of the 2D layer in the layer stacking order. No such restriction exists for lights. Just like 2D layers, other types of layers also prevent 3D layers on either side from intersecting or casting shadows on one another:

·     An adjustment layer

·    A 3D layer with a layer style applied

·   A 3D precomposition layer to which an effect, closed mask (with mask mode other than None), or track matte has been applied

A 3D precomposition layer without collapsed transformations

Diwali Celebration

In the midst of today's busy lifestyle, Diwali gives an opportunity to pause and be grateful for what we have, to make special memories with family and friends, to laugh and enjoy what life offers us. Though the festival of Dipavali has undergone some changes, in due course of time, yet it has continued to be celebrated since the time immemorial. Every year, the festive season of Diwali comes back with all the excitement and merriment. Times may have undergone a sea change but customs and traditions remain the same. Diwali is one of the most colorful, sacred and loveliest festivals of the Hindus. It is celebrated every year with great joy and enthusiasm throughout the length and breadth of the country. It is a festival of lights and festivities. It comes off about twenty days after Dussehra and shows the advent of winter. It is to the Hindus what Christmas is to the Christians. It lends charms and delight to our life.

On this Special occasion Maac Preet Vihar organized Dance, Singing and best dressing competition. More than 100 students had participated in this competition and awarded as 3^rd runner up, 2^nd runner up and 1^st prize.

Wishing you all a very happy Diwali.

O

After Effects 3D Layers

The basic objects that you manipulate in After Effects are flat, two-dimensional (2D) layers. When you make a layer a 3D layer, the layer itself remains flat, but it gains additional properties: Position (z), Anchor Point (z), Scale (z), Orientation, X Rotation, Y Rotation, Z Rotation, and Material Options properties. Material Options properties specify how the layer interacts with light and shadows. Only 3D layers interact with shadows, Lights and Cameras.

Any layer can be a 3D layer, except an audio-only layer. Individual characters within text layers can optionally be 3D sub layers, each with their own 3D properties. A text layer with Enable Per-character 3D selected behaves just like a precomposition that consists of a 3D layer for each character. All camera and light layers have 3D properties.

By default, layers are at a depth (z-axis position) of 0. In After Effects, the origin of the coordinate system is at the upper-left corner; x (width) increases from left to right, y (height) increases from top to bottom, and z (depth) increases from near to far. Some video and 3D applications use a coordinate system that is rotated 180 degrees around the x axis; in these systems, y increases from bottom to top, and z increases from far to near.

You can transform a 3D layer relative to the coordinate space of the composition, the coordinate space of the layer, or a custom space by selecting an axis mode.

You can add effects and masks to 3D layers, composite 3D layers with 2D layers, and create and animate camera and light layers to view or illuminate 3D layers from any angle. When rendering for final output, 3D layers are rendered from the perspective of the active camera.

Max Mental Ray BSP

BSP tree stands for Binary Space Partition tree.

The default BSP ray trace acceleration method is often used for small/medium Max scenes (i.e. less than one million triangles/polygons).Users often press the hotkey 7 to determine the number of polygons/faces/triangles in the scene. The default BSP ray trace acceleration method is often used for small/medium Max scenes (i.e. less than one million triangles/polygons). Users often press the hotkey 7 to determine the number of polygons/faces/triangles in the scene. It is worth noting that although the BSP parameters are under the ray tracing group, it only affects the geometry, as oppose to reflections, etc. 

This ray trace acceleration method essentially helps mental ray to cast rays in a speedy matter by creating an imaginary bounding box around the entire scene, with subdivisions. These subdivided patches/cells inside the bounding box are technically designated as voxels.Mental ray usually splits all voxels of the scene in three axes (i.e. X; Y; Z); in almost equal number of triangles, until depth is reached.

The "Size" and "Depth" parameters help mental ray to determine the total number of triangles (i.e.leafs)to be processed for ray casting/testing. The higher the depth values, the fewer the voxels will be. Fewer voxels equals faster rendering times, as mental ray will use fewer voxels to test the rays against.The default Size value of 10 sets the minimum number of objects to be found in the scene before a voxel is split (in all three axes (i.e. X; Y; Z). Smaller values equates to more voxels and slower rendering times.

When shooting a ray there are 2 phases

a) whilst checking/hitting voxels, it will touch triangles (i.e. leafs) in the process. If perchance there are 1000 triangles (i.e. leafs) in a voxel; each will be tested 40 times (i.e. default depth value). Subsequently the rendering times will be slow. If there are only 10 triangles (i.e. leafs), the process will be faster.With this in mind, the user’s goal should be to reduce the number of average and maximum leafs in the BSP tree.The total rendering time is a combination of the time it takes to create the voxels, move down the tree depth (i.e. pre processing/translation); and the final time to check/split the triangles (i.e. leafs) during the rendering time.

b) Moving down the BSP tree depth whilst checking/hitting all axis of each voxel. To have a visual representation of the BSP process, simply go to the mental ray processing parameters rollout. Under "diagnostics" parameters, enable the “visual” group:

This visual group consists of the following:

1-Sampling rate

2-coordinate space

3-Photon

4-BSP

5-Final Gather

The BSP visual diagnostics is divided by three different colors: Blue, Green and Red.Blue areas represent the lower areas of subdivision (i.e. less computation)
Green areas represent the middle areas of subdivision (i.e. intermediate computation)
Red areas represent greater areas of subdivision (i.e. high computation).

Production companies prefer to have a mix of all three colors in their diagnostics; which is an indication that mental ray is efficiently choosing the areas of the geometry to subdivide and otherwise. To fine-tune the BSP values, simply use a nice/simple texture or colour in "material override" toggle at a small resolution (i.e. 500x500 pixels).
The "material override" function has been covered in detail

Deflectors

Deflectors are used to deflect particles or to affect dynamics systems.

          

Topics in this section

POmniFlect Space Warp

POmniFlect is a planar version of the omniflector type of space warp. It provides enhanced functionality over that found in the original Deflector space warp, including refraction and spawning capabilities.

PDynaFlect Space Warp

PDynaFlect (planar dynamics deflector) is a planar version of the dynaflector, a special class of space warp that lets particles affect objects in a dynamics situation. For example, if you want a stream of particles to strike an object and knock it over, like the stream from a firehose striking a stack of boxes, use a dynaflector.

SOmniFlect Space Warp

SOmniFlect is the spherical version of the omniflector type of space warp. It provides more options than the original SDeflector. Most settings are the same as those in POmniFlect. The difference is that this space warp provides a spherical deflection surface rather than the planar surface. The only settings that are different are in the Display Icon area, in which you set the Radius, instead of the Width and Height.

SDynaFlect Space Warp

The SDynaFlect space warp is a spherical dynaflector. It’s like the PDynaFlect warp, except that it’s spherical, and its Display Icon spinner specifies the icon's Radius value.

UOmniFlect Space Warp

UOmniFlect, the universal omniflector, provides more options than the original UDeflector. This space warp lets you use any other geometric object as a particle deflector. The deflections are face accurate, so the geometry can be static, animated, or even morphing or otherwise deforming over time.  

UDynaFlect Space Warp

The UDynaFlect space warp is a universal dynaflector that lets you use the surface of any object as both the particles deflector and the surface that reacts dynamically to the particle impact.

SDeflector Space Warp

The SDeflector space warp serves as a spherical deflector of particles.

UDeflector Space Warp

The UDeflector is a universal deflector hat lets you use any object as a particle deflector.

Space Warp

The Deflector space warp acts as a planar shield to repel the particles generated by a particle system. For example, you can use Deflector to simulate pavement being struck by rain. You can combine a Deflector space warp with a Gravity space warp to produce waterfall and fountain effects………

Photo manipulation

Photo manipulation (also called photo shopping or—before the rise of Photoshop software—airbrushing) is the application of image editing   techniques to photographs in order to create an illusion or deception (in contrast to mere enhancement or correction) after the original photographing took place.

Types of digital photo manipulation

In digital editing, photographs are usually taken with a digital camera and input directly into a computer. Transparencies, negatives or printed photographs may also be digitized using a scanner, or images may be obtained from stock photography databases. With the advent of computers, graphics tablets, and digital cameras, the term image editing encompasses everything that can be done to a photo, whether in a darkroom or on a computer. Photo manipulation is often much more explicit than subtle alterations to color balance or contrast and may involve overlaying a head onto a different body or changing a sign's text, for examples. Image editing software can be used to apply effects and warp an image until the desired result is achieved. The resulting image may have little or no resemblance to the photo (or photos in the case of compositing) from which it originated. Today, photo manipulation is widely accepted as an art form.

There are several subtypes of digital image-retouching:

Technical retouching

Manipulation for photo restoration or enhancement (adjusting colors / contrast / white balance (i.e. gradational retouching), sharpness, removing elements or visible flaws on skin or materials,)

Creative retouching

Used as an art form or for commercial use to create more sleek and interesting images for advertisements. Creative retouching could be manipulation for fashion, beauty or advertising photography such as pack-shots (which could also be considered inherently technical retouching in regards to package dimensions and wrap-around factors). One of the most prominent disciplines in creative retouching is image compositing. Here, the digital artist uses multiple photos to create a single image. Today, 3D computer graphics are used more and more to add extra elements or even locations and backgrounds. This kind of image composition is widely used when conventional photography would be technically too difficult or impossible to shoot on location or in studio.

Use in glamour photography

The photo manipulation industry has often been accused of promoting or inciting a distorted and unrealistic image of self; most specifically in younger people. The world of glamour photography is one specific industry which has been heavily involved with the use of photo manipulation (an obviously concerning element as many people look up to celebrities in search of embodying the 'ideal figure)

Photo shopping

Photo shopping is a neologism for the digital editing of photos. The term originates from Adobe Photoshop, the image editor most commonly used by professionals for this purpose; however, any image-editing program could be used, such as Paint Shop Pro, Corel Photo paint, Pixelmator, Paint.NET, or GIMP. Adobe Systems, the publisher of Adobe Photoshop, discourages use of the term "Photoshop" as a verb out of concern that it may become a generic trademark, undermining the company's trademark.

Color Grading

Color grading is the process of altering and enhancing the color of a motion picture, video image, or still image either electronically, photo-chemically or digitally. The chemical process is also referred to as color timing and is typically performed at a photographic laboratory. Modern color correction, whether for theatrical film, video distribution, or print is generally done digitally in a color suite.

Primary and secondary color correction

Primary color correction affects the whole image utilizing control over intensities of red, green, blue, gamma (mid tones), shadows (blacks) and highlights (whites) of the entire frame. Secondary correction is based on the same types of processing used for Chroma Keying to isolate a range of color, saturation and brightness values to bring about alterations in luminance, saturation and hue in only that range, while having a minimal or usually no effect on the remainder of the color spectrum. Using digital grading, objects and color ranges within the scene can be isolated with precision and adjusted. Color tints can be manipulated and visual treatments pushed to extremes not physically possible with laboratory processing. With these advancements, the color correction process became increasingly similar to well-established digital painting techniques and ushered forth a new era of digital cinematography. 

Masks, Mattes, Power Windows

The evolution of digital color correction tools advanced to the point where the colorist could use geometric shapes (like mattes or masks in photo software such as Photoshop) to isolate color adjustments to specific areas of an image. These tools can highlight a wall in the background and color only that wall—leaving the rest of the frame alone—or color everything but that wall. Subsequent color correctors (typically software-based) have the ability to use spline-based shapes for even greater control over isolating color adjustments. Color keying is also used for isolating areas to adjust.

Inside and outside of area-based isolations, digital filtration can be applied to soften, sharpen or mimic the effects of traditional glass photographic filters in nearly infinite degrees.

Geometry Caching

You can save your Polygon mesh, NURBS (including curves) surface, and Subdivision Surface deformations (skin and non-skin) to a server or local hard drive by caching your object’s deformations to a geometry cache. 

Geometry caches are special Maya files that store vertex transformation data. They are useful when you want to reduce the number of calculations Maya performs when playing back or rendering scenes that contain many deforming objects, and they allow you to easily mix and edit your object’s deformations in an intuitive, nonlinear manner. With geometry caches, you can also exchange point data through the Autodesk® FBX® plug-in with other supported software packages. Cache Blend Shapes so that you can further modify their deformations by replacing or deleting geometry cache frames. Cache a character’s high resolution skin with many deformations to speed up the playback or rendering of its scene. You can create geometry caches for your objects from the Geometry Caching.

Redirect

Makes the current character set redirectable. When a character set is redirectable, this mean that you can now change the translation and orientation of already established (motion capture) animation.

Rotation and Translation Creates a rotation and translation control for the current character set.

 Rotation Only

Creates a rotation redirection control for the current character set. The rotation redirection control appears at the origin of the current character. The rotation redirection control is useful if you want to change the orientation of your character set’s pivot. For example, you can manipulate a rotation redirection control to get a character to turn 90 degrees (around a corner perhaps) halfway through its walk cycle.

Translation Only

Creates a translation redirection control for the current character set. The rotation redirection control appears at the origin of the current character.

The translation redirection control is useful if you want to change the translation of the point around which your object pivots. For example, you can manipulate the translation redirection control to change the place at which a character lands from a jump.

Destruction of Rigid Bodies and FEA

The DMM stands beyond above in comparison to traditional RBD (Rigid Body Dynamics).The RBD can control the simulations with limited number of ways, where DMM has 100s of degrees of freedom. The eminency which DMM holds is its flexibility of changing physical material properties from jelly to concrete.

The DMM also holds real world physical materials and attributes like Young’s modulus, Friction, Gravity, Poisson values...etc.

Digital molecular matter is a next generation revolution in FX industry which is based on FEA (Finite Element Analysis).FEA was introduced in 1940’s and developed further in 1960’s and 70’s .The FEA was used to detect the defects of Nuclear plant and gas pipelines. FEA is used to detect the change in the material properties under stress and strain. This technology was implemented in CGI by Pixelux Entertainment. The idea of this technology was considered by M.P.C, also and was used in their pipeline with Project “KALI”.

The DMM has a unique mesh called “TET”Mesh which is different from a polygonal mesh; in this case the Tetrahedral is connected to each other with vertices, edges and faces and entirely dense from inside. The simulation of mesh takes place in manner like, a low resolution is encapsulating the high resize output surface mesh and drives the output mesh.Ini actual it’s the simulated mesh which do all the simulations and dynamics from the input received from DMM simulator. The DMM is way fast and predictable and now a day’s a lot of software’s are also supporting the FEA.

Polygon Modeling Work-Flow

Polygon modeling is a traditional modeling system of creating geometries that help in creating design visualizations like building, architectures, set designs and stalls. Polygon modeling workflow is widely accepted and has been a benchmark and only accepted method of animation industry for crating compelling art of characters, monsters, games and movies and advertisements.

Polygon is a straight sided geometry used for creating shapes and design from very basic primitives to the extreme level of organic humanoid details. This technology is used in high end software’s like Maya and 3DS MAX, Softimage, Houdini, Light wave 3D, Cinema 4D etc. The polygons were brought in a next generation level of modeling in Zbrush which was the game changer and introduced the concept of digital sculpting by enabling toolset on polygons which made an artist to work and feel as If in the real clay environment.

Polygons are widely used in various platform of android games,X-Boxx,PS3 and computer gaming consoles. The environment and props designed in games are completely made up and utilized in an efficient manner with polygons. Polygon modeling is a very versatile and connecting and editing points in polygon is very intuitive and can be easily concede. Polygon modeling workflow is used in medical and engineering department to impart next level of education and knowledge to industry trained professionals and newbie also.

Polygon in its technical structure is composed of Vertices, edges, faces and UVs. The polygon in its sub object level is always edited to comprehend changes. UVs are the most essential part of Vertices which are programmed to provide and capture texture details and their main task is to Transfer pixel data to spread on 3D surface mesh.

What Is Light

Over the centuries, our view of light has changed dramatically. The first real theories about light came from the ancient Greeks. Many of these theories sought to describe light as a ray -- a straight line moving from one point to another. Pythagoras, best known for the theorem of the right-angled triangle, proposed that vision resulted from light rays emerging from a person's eye and striking an object Light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which ranges from radio waves to gamma rays. Electromagnetic radiation waves, as their names suggest are fluctuations of electric and magnetic fields, which can transport energy from one location to another. Visible light is not inherently different from the other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum with the exception that the human eye can detect visible waves. Electromagnetic radiation can also be described in terms of a stream of photons which are mass less particles each travelling with wavelike properties at the speed of light. A photon is the smallest quantity (quantum) of energy which can be transported and it was the realization that light travelled in discrete quanta that was the origins of Quantum Theory. It’s a kind of energy called “electromagnetic (EM) radiation” (but this kind of radiation is not harmful, except for occasional sunburn). There are other kinds of EM radiation too (radio waves, microwaves, x-rays, etc.), but light is the part we can see, the part makes the rainbow.

Selection Tools in Photoshop

Lasso Tool
The Lasso Tool is 100% freeform. Simply grab it and start drawing with your mouse or track pad to make a selection. Obviously, the result is going to be rudimentary at best and even tends to be quite sloppy.

Polygonal Lasso Tool
The Polygonal Lasso Tool allows you to click from point to point to gradually build a selection. Selections made with this tool are purely comprised of straight edges. If you don’t mind some tedious clicking, you can pull off a primitive curve, but for the most part you’ll definitely want to stick to hard edges.

Magnetic Lasso Tool
The Magnetic Lasso Tool is a lot like a cross between the Polygonal Lasso Tool and the Magic Wand Tool. It allows you to build your selection incrementally, but in a fairly automatic fashion. Simply move your mouse along an edge and the MLT will give its best guess for outlining that edge. You can let the tool build your points automatically or manually click if there’s a specific point that you think needs to be dropped. 

MAAC Preet Vihar Alumni Meet: 2014-15

Maac Preet Vihar celebrates 11^th year of Success. This early year has brought a lot for all of us. Maac Preet vihar has won best placement award in across pan India. This means we have provided maximum jobs to our students and placed them well in one of the leading studios of Animation industry. We are proud to call for our students that “Students of yesterday, Professional’s of today. We are very excited to call an Alumni Meet in our respective centre which was lead by our Senior Instructor’s and Centre Administrators.

The Alumni meet was focused to develop the confidence in existing students and help them also to raise the flag ship of our institute to even a further level. We call off our Alumni’s who were once students and used to get teaching from the same place, who are now working in eminent companies.

Our motive is also to felicitate their hard works and to make new bees to acknowledge the hard work and studies they made once to fetch the desired jobs. We believe that getting the desired jobs after the successful completion of the course is a real excitement. The Alumni’s were called to share their industry experience and provide cutting edge and best solutions and career perspective to our existing students. This way we ensure apart from regular teaching we do put our stress on activities of knowledge sessions and seminars to help students in establishing careers.

Maac Preet Vihar is always in highlights when it comes to participation in extracurricular activities and seminars and workshops where we also call industry leaders and senior production artist to provide hands on and career related training to the students.

The Alumni meet is a successful event of our centre and we wish to continue for long and long to provide continuous updates and knowledge emergence program to maintain our league to remain the top level 3D and VFX industry educators.

3D Wall Art

3D wall art painting have been around since the sixteenth century. The magic of 3D is created by painting a 2d picture and viewing it from a specific angle to capture the right perspective. MAAC Preet Vihar is going to feature some of their latest and most awe-inspiring pictures.

What Is a Mask in Photoshop?

The term “mask” isn’t immediately understandable to someone outside the realm of graphic design. At its simplest definition a mask is a way to apply something to a very specific portion of an image.There is two primary types of masks: clipping masks and layer masks. These two tools are closely related in concept, but very different in application.

Layer Masks: A layer mask is something that you apply to a given layer to control the transparency of that layer. Where layer opacity controls the transparency of the entire layer at once, a mask gives you more precise controls over very specific areas. If you want the entire layer to be at 30%, you would lower the opacity, if you want just the left side of a layer to be at 30%, you would use a mask. On this invisible canvas, you can paint white, black or any level of gray in-between. The color that you paint tells Photoshop how opaque to make the pixels at that point. White means 100% opacity and black means 0% opacity. There are ways to see it that we’ll check out later but just know that as a general rule, applying a mask to a layer won’t cause any immediate visual differences unless you have an active selection at the time.

Clipping Masks: Clipping masks are very similar to layer masks only they use one layer to determine the transparency of another. In this scenario, you stack two layers on top of each other with the bottom being the determining factor of the transparency of the top. Instead of using black and white values though, clipping masks simply borrow transparency from the layers used to make them, namely the bottom layer. If the bottom layer has some areas that are opaque and some areas that are transparent, a clipping mask will apply these values to the top layer.

Personality Development Classes

It has been noticed that even after getting good education people find themselves lacking somewhere when it comes to their own personality. They feel difficulties in facing public. Now days every organization wants to have multi talented man power, so we need to develop ourselves at all the level. Most of us, in some time of the life, have to speak before a group of people. Some people take this public speaking as an opportunity whereas others are likely to be anxious just with the thought of addressing a room full of audience. They would leave no stone unturned to escape from the situation. This is quite true that people who are scared of public speaking lack confidence but they can surely build it up. Like others, they can also speak well, capture the audience and set themselves apart. Personality development training helps you to overcome all these difficulties and speak with confidence before huge audience.

MAAC Preet Vihar concluded Personality development classes for students. Our course is designed to meet the specific needs of our clients depending on their personal/organization requirements and their existing skills. Personality development course includes:

Course Content 

v  Assessment

v  Use of magic words, use of slang, idioms, phrasal verbs

v  Role plays/Discussions/scenario-based learning-money, clothes, travel, shopping, etc.

v  MBTI Personality test, concept/types of personality.

v  Facial Expressions & Gestures- palm power &handshakes

v  Presentation Skills

v  Public Speaking

v  GDPI- tips and tricks for group discussions

v  Difference between American & British English- Vocabulary, Pronunciation and Accent, Intensive Practice of Prounciation

v  Mock Interviews

v  JAM session

v  Doubt Session, Feedback

Give you a promotion to join MAAC Preet Vihar.