[CGnews]

The film "Sivaji The Boss" starring super star Rajini is the costliest film made in india to date. The director S. Shanker wanted to change Rajini's wheatish complexion to a white European complexion and tasked visual effects company Indian Artists with the challenging task!

The film is Directed by S.Shanker, Cinematography by K.V.Anand, Music by A.R.Rahman and Produced by A.V.M Productions. Rajini, the hero of the film, is a well known actor worldwide. People call him “Super Star” because of his unique style. He is the 2nd highest paid actor in Asia after Jackie chan.

In this film, director Shanker wanted to change Rajini's wheatish complexion to a white European complexion. As a visual effects company (Indian Artists) this was a challenging task for us because we guess nobody has executed this type of concept in the world. Thanks to Mr. Shanker for giving us this opportunity to execute his brilliant idea.

Making videos: http://www.indianartists.co.in/shivaji.htm

The Technique behind Dark skin to fair skin:

To begin with, we (Indian artists) did an in-depth study of the European complexion. We found that white skin reflects more light and has less shadow when compared to dark skin and is translucent in some areas. Therefore a simple color correction of the hero's skin would not achieve the desired effect.

For the shoot a London based young white lady with a fresh complexion and flushed cheeks was chosen and with the help of Cinematographer Mr. K.V.Anand every single shot of the hero was repeated with her because lighting conditions change in every shot. After the final edit all the 630 hero shots and 630 girl shots were scanned in 4K resolution. Each of the 9000 scanned frames ware rotoscoped to separate the body parts (face, hands, legs etc.). The white lady's skin was mapped onto the Super Star's image using Eyeon “Digital Fusion” software. Thus the Super Star got his glowing white complexion.

There were two difficult aspects in this project. One was matching the girl's action with the hero's action and the second was matching both of their body proportions during mapping.

Though it sounds simple, the work involved was laborious and painstaking. Great attention was paid to detail right from the shoot until the final print. It has taken 25 dedicated CG technicians almost a year to achieve this 6 ½ min. feat.

Making videos: http://www.indianartists.co.in/shivaji.htm


V.Srinivas M mohan (vfx supervisor)
T.K Jayakumar
INDIAN ARTISTS
New No. 9, 3rd Street
Kumaran Colony
Vadapalani
Chennai
Tamilnadu
INDIA. Pin: 600 026.

Email: indart@eth.net
Web: www.indianartists.co.in

VFXTalkback! Discuss this article in our forums here:
http://www.vfxtalk.com/forum/digital...ji-t10786.html

[prasanthkraj.raj]

its wonderful
i think its only color correcting
great!!!!

[the ckynus]

watch the quicktimes its not cc, they actually put in chunks of skin...

but im with you i would have attempted a cc first, and im sure they did too and it wasnt working.

[ronnie.s]

well thats a gr8 job ......
but can anybody tell me how much time it will take for doing a single shot..........

[the ckynus]

a whole lot longer than color correct or makeup

[mohanvsm]

Chk this case study link

http://www.vfxtalk.com/forum/digital...ji-t10786.html

[the ckynus]

Originally Posted by dyankayn

the work involved was laborious and painstaking. Great attention was paid to detail right from the shoot until the final print. It has taken 25 dedicated CG technicians almost a year to achieve this 6 ½ min. feat

WTF! and i thought roto was slow and painstaking, no wonder the indians love it.

[Criminal's Ethic]

They shoot Rajni and an English girl separately and later combined using skin grafting. The Indian Arts took 365 days to complete skin grafting for the 6000 frames in the song.With the help of 25 cg artists..

Its not a color correction... its frame by frame skin grafting work...

[mohanvsm]