PRODUCTION AND POST
A ZIVA MOMENT Ziva Dynamics co-CEO James Jacobs discusses Ziva VFX Academic, the advanced character simulation software now available for students What makes Ziva a good tool for students? One of the consequences of living in a golden era of digital media is that audiences have extremely high standards for visual effects. With every technological leap, expectations grow, which presents a challenge for professional artists and students who want to tell visually compelling stories. Ziva VFX offers a new way to simulate characters, guided by anatomy and real-world physics. This method was developed by Sci-Tech Academy Award-winning VFX pioneers, and as such, it removes time-intensive steps from the creation process and helps artists of all levels achieve more lifelike results. Why make it available for students? What benefit does it bring to the company? Ziva VFX is quickly becoming the industry standard for character work in visual effects studios around the world. We believe it is important for students to master
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the same tools as the industry professionals so that they can enter the job market with a competitive edge. Many of our studio customers have also expressed a keen interest in hiring Ziva simulation specialists for their creature teams. To what extent will students trained on Ziva be prepared for work in the industry? We believe that students should learn all of the most relevant and common character creation theories/ practices so that they can easily adapt to fit the needs of the studios. That said, many studios are seeking creature creators that specialise in Ziva, so students trained in our software will be more marketable after graduation. They’ll also be prepared to complete the entire simulation process as Ziva VFX can handle this through Maya, without depending on any other tool sets. This empowers students with more control and authority over their work.