Advanced Animation and VFX Techniques

• Grasp the complete 3-D production pipeline—from modelling and UV mapping through rigging, animation, lighting, rendering, and real-time deployment—so students see how every phase connects.
• Achieve tool proficiency in industry software (Autodesk Maya, Blender, and Unity), enabling learners to switch comfortably between DCC packages and game engines while following best-practice workflows.
• Create clean, efficient 3-D geometry by mastering primitive types, editing tools (extrude, bevel, loop-cut, sculpt, etc.), and topology rules for both hard-surface props and organic characters.
• Unwrap, texture, and shade assets convincingly, applying UV-mapping strategies, texture-map types (albedo, normal, roughness, etc.), and physically based shading to reach targeted visual styles or realism.
• Light, render, and composite scenes for mood and readability, selecting appropriate light types, HDRIs, and render-engine settings (Cycles, Eevee, Arnold) to achieve cinematic or real-time quality outputs.
• Rig characters and mechanical models for animation, building joint hierarchies, skin weights, deformers, and IK/FK systems that support expressive facial/body motion and technical accuracy.
• Animate believable motion and performances, employing pose-to-pose and straight-ahead techniques, graph-editor refinement, timing/spacing principles, and asset-management discipline.
• Integrate and script assets in Unity, using prefabs, particle systems, lighting, and C# scripts to create interactive scenes, optimize performance, and prepare multi-platform builds.
• Collaborate effectively on 3-D projects, applying version control, asset-naming conventions, milestones, and peer review to keep a production on schedule.
• Deliver a polished capstone project that demonstrates concept development, technical execution, debugging, and final presentation skills equivalent to entry-level studio or indie-game standards.
• Trace the historical evolution of visual-effects techniques and articulate the function of each stage in a contemporary VFX pipeline (pre-production, on-set supervision, and post-production).
• Use colour theory and grading workflows to shape mood, continuity, and narrative impact across live-action and CG-augmented shots.
• Capture motion-capture sessions, clean and retarget the data, and combine tracked performances with CG assets or live plates.
• Execute professional rotoscoping and advanced chroma-keying—handling hair, motion blur, and stereo pairs—to generate clean, production-ready mattes.
• Perform 2-D, planar, and 3-D camera tracking (including lens-distortion workflows) to anchor CG or matte-painted elements seamlessly into moving footage.
• Produce kinetic typography, logo animations, and particle-based effects (fire, smoke, rain, explosions) that integrate convincingly within composite shots.
• Combine multi-pass renders, HDR imagery, lighting, and camera moves to create digital set extensions, sky replacements, depth-of-field, and parallax effects.
• Estimate costs, schedule resources, automate workflows with scripts/expressions, iterate through client feedback, and output a polished, production-ready sequence that meets technical and storytelling goals.
• Describe the evolution of VFX, major historical milestones, and the roles of pre-production, production, and post-production stages in a modern VFX pipeline.
• Analyse the psychological impact of colour and perform primary/secondary colour-grading to reinforce mood and continuity across multi-shot sequences.
• Differentiate optical, inertial, and marker-less MoCap systems, record a basic performance, clean the data, and retarget it to a digital character.
• Generate articulate mattes—including hair and stereo pairs—using shape, point-track, and planar-track workflows; export renders for downstream compositing.
• Remove chroma backdrops with advanced keyers (Keylight, IBK) and refine edges with spill suppression, light-wrap, grain-matching, and garbage mattes.
• Create and animate text, logos, and infographic elements using masks, mattes, graph-editor curves, and plug-ins to communicate information visually.
• Perform 2-D point, planar, and 3-D camera tracking; solve lens distortion; and insert CG or matte-painted elements that lock seamlessly to live-action plates.
• Integrate multi-pass renders, HDR footage, lights, and cameras in After Effects/Nuke to create depth-of-field, parallax, sky-replacement, and digital set-extension shots.
• Employ Trapcode, Optical Flares, Particular CC, or equivalent tools to simulate rain, smoke, fire, explosions, and abstract particle trails within composited scenes.
• Estimate resources and costs, organise assets, automate repetitive tasks with scripts/expressions, iterate through client feedback, and output a polished, production-ready sequence that meets technical and storytelling goals.

• Create clean, production-ready hard-surface and organic models in Maya / Blender, selecting appropriate primitives, edit tools (extrude, bevel, loop-cut, sculpt, etc.) and maintaining correct topology and scale.
• Unwrap complex assets, generate and apply PBR texture maps (albedo, normal, roughness, metallic, emission) and build physically-based materials in both offline (Arnold / Cycles) and real-time (Eevee / Unity) workflows.
• Configure key, fill, rim and HDRI setups; choose render engines and settings; and output stills or sequences that communicate mood, depth and readability for interior, exterior and product scenes.
• Construct joint hierarchies, skin weights, deformers, constraints and IK / FK switches to deliver animation-ready rigs for bipeds, quadrupeds and mechanical props, including basic facial controls.
• Animate convincing body mechanics, facial performance and camera moves using pose-to-pose, straight-ahead and graph-editor refinement, applying weight shift, timing / spacing and follow-through principles.
• Import optimised assets, set up prefab hierarchies, materials, lighting and particle systems; write C# scripts for interaction; and build playable scenes for desktop or mobile deployment.
• Diagnose and improve performance through polygon budgeting, LODs, light-baking, texture packing and profiling tools to keep projects within target platform budgets.
• Apply asset-naming conventions, version control, milestones and task tracking to collaborate effectively in multi-disciplinary teams from pre-production through final delivery.
• Evaluate personal and peer work against aesthetic, technical and user-experience criteria, delivering constructive critiques and iterating to improve quality.
• Plan, build, test and present a polished short film or interactive level that integrates modelling, texturing, rigging, animation, lighting and scripting, demonstrating readiness for entry-level studio or indie-game roles.

The academic approach of the course focuses on ‘work-centric’ education. With this hands-on approach, derive knowledge from and while working to make it more wholesome, delightful and useful. The ultimate objective is to empower learners to also engage in socially useful and productive work. It aims at bringing learners closer to their rewarding careers as well as to the development of the community.

• Step 1: Learners are given an overview of the course and its connection to life and work
• Step 2: Learners are exposed to the specific tool(s) used in the course through the various real-life applications of the tool(s).
• Step 3: Learners are acquainted with the careers and the hierarchy of roles they can perform at workplaces after attaining increasing levels of mastery over the tool(s).
• Step 4: Learners are acquainted with the architecture of the tool or tool map so as to appreciate various parts of the tool, their functions, utility and inter-relations.
• Step 5: Learners are exposed to simple application development methodology by using the tool at the beginner’s level.
• Step 6: Learners perform the differential skills related to the use of the tool to improve the given ready-made industry-standard outputs.
• Step 7: Learners are engaged in appreciation of real-life case studies developed by the experts.
• Step 8: Learners are encouraged to proceed from appreciation to imitation of the experts.
• Step 9: After the imitation experience, they are required to improve the expert’s outputs so that they proceed from mere imitation to emulation.
• Step 10: Emulation is taken a level further from working with differential skills towards the visualization and creation of a complete output according to the requirements provided. (Long Assignments)
• Step 11: Understanding the requirements, communicating one’s own thoughts and presenting are important skills required in facing an interview for securing a work order/job. For instilling these skills, learners are presented with various subject-specific technical as well as HR-oriented questions and encouraged to answer them.
• Step 12: Finally, they develop the integral skills involving optimal methods and best practices to produce useful outputs right from scratch, publish them in their ePortfolio and thereby proceed from emulation to self-expression, from self-expression to self-confidence and from self-confidence to self-reliance and self-esteem!