My Animation Blog

"Scared Shrekless" to hit TV screens 28th Oct 2010!

2010-09-30T22:26:00.001-07:00

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Kecks-Exclusives-Look-1023773.aspx

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11212148

"Scared Shrekless" is the second TV special we completed at the DDU after "Merry Madagascar".
Its a Halloween based episode involving Shrek and all his friends. The show was in production for the past 7-8 months and unlike Merry Madagascar, it was done completely here at our unit in Bangalore!
If you live in the US, you can watch it on the NBC Channnel on the 28th of October 2010! ... if you dont, you can catch it on DVD in the coming months! :)

Theres also some bonus stuff we did for the Shrek 4 DVD that included a Christmas carol song and additional sequences.

I had a lot of fun animating on these shows! ... hoping that it is recieved well ! :)

-Prash

The Cat and the Juggler

2009-10-30T09:51:00.000-07:00

"The Cat and the Juggler" is a short film I was associated with at Raydrops Animation Studio Pvt Ltd - Bangalore prior to joining the DreamWorks unit.
This film went on to win the ASIFA Award of Excellence 2009 in the Best Professional Film Category and also the FICCI frames Award 2010 for the Best Direction.
Considering the fact that it was done by a bunch of young and relatively inexperienced artists, it makes it very special!!
I supervised the animation (didnt animate any) till around mid April and am glad to be associated with this film!
check it out!!

Vinod and me with the FICCI award!

team snap with the FICCI award:

Team Raydrops recieving the award from Shelly Page (DreamWorks) during the BangaloreASIFA IAD !

ICE AGE 3 Game Clip

2009-08-17T10:55:00.000-07:00

Heres the clip I animted for the ICE AGE 3 game for Eurocom Entertainment Software.
This was done in a span of 20 working days part-time during Feb-March 2009.
Although the rigs were limited in their controls, I had so much fun working with Sid and Co!..hope you like it! :)

-Prash

DDU's 4 old men! ;)

2009-08-17T10:46:00.001-07:00

Ethnic Day (August 14th) at the DreamWorks Unit!
L-R: Andy Maxman (Anand Baid), Wall-E, Prasanjib Nag, Amrit Derhgawen, Prashanth Cavale.

Catch up time!!

2009-06-27T23:50:00.000-07:00

Well, I wouldnt say that I have been super busy!...but yeah.. I hardly get time to update this blog.
At the DreamWorks Unit, we wound up the animation of Merry Madagascar a couple of days back...Im glad I got to animate on it as well!
The visuals, animation style and the overall stylistic treatment is pretty much a continuation of Mad 2. Im sure you will agree when you see it and the entire team of animators here deserve a big round of applause! yaaay!
Technically it is challenging to get used to their propreitory tools on a different platform....( especially when you have been pampered with Maya) It also might require re-structuring your workflow a bit..to me it was a refreshing process and Im happy with the little progress that I have managed to make all these days.
Its a happy crowd out there and amidst all the tight schedules you can almost hear a crackle every minute...Overall, its what I call a laid back and a very informal work environment!
We ease into a couple of smaller projects and then head into the training for Shrek!! :))

On the personal front, I havent animated in Maya for a while. I did start of a rough pose test with Norman a couple of weeks back but that never took off. I have a couple of dialogs that I want to animate and I seriously hope that I make time for it and dont loose touch with Maya.

I also plan to pull up random animation clips and analyze them on my blog...i hope that would be an interesting excercise!

So..until next time!
ciao!

-Prash

Headed towards DreamWorks Unit - Bangalore!! :)

2009-04-29T09:58:00.000-07:00

In about a weeks time from now (May 7th) , I will be joining the animation team of the DreamWorks Dedicated Unit @ Paprikaas - Bangalore.

Looks like I would get to animate on a Direct-to-Video episode of SHREK after the initial training... lots of fun and challenges headed my way! This is by far the biggest opportunity I've had to utilize my abilities and I'm eagerly looking forward to it!!

For those who arent aware, heres a small article on the DreamWorks Unit at Bangalore :

http://www.animationxpress.com/anex/y2k8/headlines/anex3778.htm#

coming week, I'll have another update hopefully

...till then...ciao and take care! :)

-Prash

The Eurocom gig! :)

2009-02-07T10:24:00.000-08:00

update!!

...started freelancing for Europe's leading independent games developer Eurocom Entertainment Software.

Im working on the ICE AGE-3 game which will be released along with the movie this July I guess!

yoohooo!!!...I get to animate Sidd the Sloth as the central character of the sequence I have been assigned!

-Prash

My AM Short Film- Wrong Answer!! & Winning the Student Choice Awards!! :))

2009-01-24T08:12:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone!
Heres the short film I worked on during the last 2 terms at AnimationMentor.com.
I call it - Wrong Answer!!
It is about an un-prepared guy in the exam hall!
At the moment this version just has the Maya viewport playblasts and I plan to put up the rendered version shortly.
Animation wise Im calling it done, although its still a bit unrefined in places...and its time to move ahead! :)

Wrong Answer!! from Prashanth Cavale on Vimeo.

feel free to comment/suggest and critique...
Hope you like it! :)

Coming to the other topic, Im super thrilled to have won the AnimationMentor Student Choice Award in the Walkcycle category!
this is a huge honor to be recognized amongst hundreds of super talented animators..and I owe this to my parents, my mentors and all my buddies who kept inspiring me!...thanks so much! :)

cheers!
-Prash

Got nominated for the AM Student Choice Awards!! :D

2008-11-11T01:14:00.000-08:00

Yaay!
I got nominated under 3 categories for the AnimationMentor student choice awards - GC9 and GC10:

1. Best Dialog Acting ( 2 char dialog shot/ single char dialog shot )
2. Best Silent Acting ( the guy in the museum)
3. Walk Cycle with best personality (sneak)

regardless of whether I win or not....this is a huge honor!! :)

-Prash

James Baxter Workshop!

2008-11-10T22:31:00.000-08:00

Nov 6th ASIFA India International Animation Day event, Hebbal- Bangalore.

Most of us animators know James Baxter (supervising animator DreamWorks) as one of the greatest animators ever...and the fact that he would be conducting a workshop in Bangalore was the sweetest of news we could get to hear!
The ASIFA India- International Animation Day was a glimpse of the Genius he is..The event turned out to be 3 hrs of pure animation bliss!! :D
His workshop covered a variety of topics that go into making animation believable... the stuff that many of us find difficult to implement in our shots.

Points he touched upon:

Performance and Acting:

> Actor performs..Animator describes...it is that much more harder and challenging for us animators to stay in the moment for as long as possible than it would be for an actor.. added to that..we need to think of a bunch of other technical things to get the Computer generated performance to read.

> Considering character traits and personality while shooting video reference...cause if you just enact out a dialog..it will end up being just "you" and not the actual character you would want to animate...before enacting out vid ref, you shouldnt be thinking abt the gestures and the postures you are gonna hit...they will just happen almost like a second nature if you "become" the character..this highlights the importance of planning, building/analyzing character history before starting off..something that would push your performance a step ahead.

Inertia:

> the factors that go into showing weight in your animation...
its not that heavier objects move slow..its just that they take more time to reach a speed "x" than a lighter object would take to reach the same speed...(im not talking abt free fall/gravity here)and this "extra time" the heavy object wud take is what we need to reflect through timing and spacing to make the animation look weighty.

> the other things he covered were on the body mechanics front - mechanics of a walk...analyzing and looking at it as "controlled falling"...and how the planting of feet influences the weight shifts etc ....

This was followed by the making of The Kung Fu Panda Title sequence...I was amazed at his experimental approach...the animation was a combination of tweaking still images and traditional cell animation..the result as we all saw is a stunning hybrid form of animation!

that apart, there were lots of other cool things he mentioned, but these are the more prominent ones i can remember as of now...whats stunning was the way he was able to hold our attention till the end despite the fact that it was just a vocal presentation with occasional doodles...

Sitting just a few of meters from him as he went thru all of this and getting to meet him in person was a blessing..something I will remember for a long time to come!!

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AM buddies with Tim Ingersoll (Animation Instructor - DreamWorks Bangalore)

Vinod, Anand Baid a.k.a Andy Maxman (DW Bangalore), Prash and Tim

Post event meet-up!

AM Bangalore Meet!! :)

2008-09-19T11:37:00.003-07:00

Hey!...its been quite a while since i posted something here...
Infact, I just wound up Term 5 at AM!! ...and in many ways this has been the most challenging term so far as you get to plan the bigger picture of which character animation is just a part. ...Being Mike's student helped me to a great extent!! ...He has been directing for quite a while and is probably one of AM's earliest mentors. I totally admire his thought process while planning cameras , character placement, sequences, setting up an act etc.
Not sure how effective my short would turn out to be eventually, but he definitely got the best out of me during this pre-production phase! :) ...so, just as I wound up the last assignment, there was some more fun headed my way! ...
We had a super cool AM student meet here in Bangalore! 6 of us AM buddies got together for dinner a couple of days back (19th Sept) and it was so much fun!..It was great to have Ambica who had come over all the way from Madurai, the super enthusiastic Siva, Vinod- The CG Encyclopaedia, my close buddy Ashwini, the newbie Mohan and the gentle giant Vinay..wish we had spent more time guys!

(L-R) Siva,Vinod,Ambica,Vinay,Prash,Mohan

-Prash

Met Mike! :)

2008-08-03T08:20:00.000-07:00

I met my my Term 5 mentor Mike on Friday here at Bangalore - India.
I went over to Paprikaas Interactive where Mike is Directing TV series!
Even though he was busy doing reviews and stuff, it was so great that he could spend time with me...got a sneak peak into some of the awesome stuff they are developing!! ... it made my day!!...thanks soo much Mike! :)

-Prash

The Royal Choker

2008-07-24T23:23:00.000-07:00

Hello!

Heres a small shot I animated at work!
...it more or less underlines my disappointment at the way our team (The Royal Challengers Bangalore) performed during the IPL!
Thanks to my colleagues Balaji and Avinash who did a great job with the model, rig and the render!

-Prash :)

Double Character Dialog shot

2008-06-24T09:01:00.000-07:00

heres the final submission I made for the double character dialog shot during term 4 at AM!!
The audio clip is from the movie "Kingpin". Huge thanks to my mentor Bret Parker for backing me with this clip!...not only did I enjoy working on it, I ended up making the lady in the car look like her! :P

2008-05-26T06:35:00.000-07:00

...close to a year back, I decided to learn animation seriously... joining AnimationMentor.com was a step towards that direction...and has been probably the most rewarding learning experience!!...so..here is a collection of some of my better works in AM so far!!
hope you like it! :)

2008-05-21T01:12:00.000-07:00

Hi there!...Thanks for dropping by!!

Will start posting stuff soon!!

....until then...take care!!

cya! :)