Pakistani software engineer, Novaira Masood, and her team, were behind the stunning, innovative animation in Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent. She, along with her team was responsible for the three fairies in the movie.
Not only this, but Novaira has also worked on visual effects for some popular Hollywood films, like A Christmas Carol, Mars needs Moms, Thor,Transformers 3 and Jack the Giant Slayer.
Novaira studied software engineering from Fast-NU, Islamabad, before she went to the US to pursue her Masters degree from the University of Minnesota.
Following her friends and also her parents’ advice, Novaira entered the field of Computer Science and only developed interest in Computer Graphics in her final year at college.
“I really like writing code that has instant visual feedback and I liked making things look better and more realistic,” said Novaira, who is currently based in Seattle in the US.
Having been in the field for six years, Novaira has worked in multiple areas of visual effects, but her main focus has been on performance capture software, a technique used to capture live human body and facial data to apply onto animated characters in order to make the animations look more lifelike and realistic.
