We are having our share of great movies this summer, among them Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, Terminator Salvation and now Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. While many are eager to know the story plot, others are amazed at the various graphics and visual effects that these movies had. All of these were made possible by Autodesk Inc.’s digital entertainment software , the reason why we saw some scintillating scenes right from the very trailers.

Industrial, Light & Magic created stunning visual effects using Autodesk visual effects software, including Autodesk Maya and the Autodesk Inferno software that is part of ILM’s proprietary SABRE high-speed compositing system. But most of all, it is the people as well who mastered this software that should be given credit, something that is not easy to do by any book.

Associate Animation Supervisor Jeff White said, “With different artists of different disciplines and skill sets collaborating on the movie, the ever-increasing interoperability of Autodesk tools is a big advantage.” ILM used the capabilities of a range of Autodesk software across the “Transformers” production pipeline: Autodesk 3ds Max software for digital matte painting, Autodesk Softimage software in the art department, Inferno/SABRE for compositing, Autodesk Backburner software for network processing and Maya as the core tool for animation, rigging and layout.

It makes you wonder if you could use this software and take up this visual effects thing. But if you think the software is all that you need, try considering the effort and expertise of creating such graphics with creativity and imagination. That is the part that seems to be hard, especially if you are not familiar with the software being used.

(Source) Press