Wednesday, October 6, 2010

PEN to release 2D animated feature Lava Kusa

Seems it is an animated Ramayana season this Dussehra.

Close to the heels of release announcement of Maya's 3D animated flick Ramayana, Hyderabad based RVML animation is all set to release 2D animated feature Lava Kusa: The Warrior Twins on October 8th across 200 screens pan India.

The feature is presented by PEN, produced by RVML animation and released by Suniel Wadhwa from '52 weeks entertainment Inc' in India.

Lava Kusa: The Warrior Twins, is the tale of two endearing twins Lava and Kusa (Sons of lord Rama and Sita), growing up in the forest with their mother and sage Valmiki. As young men they pit their strength against Rama, the absentee father who has aggrieved their mother. This story from the Ramayan depicts the determination of the twins and the adventures they have as they journey towards their aim, getting their father to redress the wrongs he's done to their mother.

On being asked about choosing a generic topic (mythology) as the story has been told several times on different platforms, Rayudu V. Sashank, Creative Director and Producer of Lava Kusa. Says, "The story of Ramayana has surely been told several times in popular media, but not so in the case with the mythological characters of Lava and Kusa. This is the reason why children today do not know much about the warrior twins. Telling the story of Lava and Kusa through an animation film would best connect with children who are our target audience,"

Music of the flick plays a key role and is being released in three versions, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. The music is composed by acclaimed Music Director late L. Vaidyanathan of Malgudi Days and Pushpaka Vimanam fame. Renowned singers like K. J Yesudas, Vijay Yesudas, Shankar Mahadevan, Chitra and Sadhana Sargam have rendered songs in the movie.

On a concluding note, PEN's Dhaval Gada added, "The Warrior Twins will add an extra zing to the festive season this year, the first offering from Pen's stable of animation films. Children and families are sure to enjoy the film"

Source: http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/news/2010/10/05/14727/

Friday, September 3, 2010

New multi-media hub in Melbourne

A new multi-media hub at the Victorian Arts Centre will offer students the chance to learn skills useful for jobs in game development, animation, film, music, web development and the performing arts.

Victorian Minister for the Arts Peter Batchelor says the facilities at the new Arts Centre Digital Learning Hub would ensure the centre moved with the times. “The Hub will enable students and young people to learn about sound recording, engineering and new digital frontiers that are impacting on the arts scene."

Mr Batchelor says the Arts Centre’s education team will use the new Hub "to guide participants through an amazing array of options including courses in animation, film techniques and the latest music and web technology".

“Most young people are tech-savvy. They own tools of modern technology, know the buttons to push and create their own content in ways other generations could never have imagined. What the Digital Learning Hub does is harness the enthusiasm and willingness of young minds to go further, to challenge technology and to create new and exciting projects.”

The new facilities include:

* Video production and editing equipment with green screen capability so that students can create digital video content for their projects
* A separate state-of-the-art recording studio with a world class vocal booth and a fully digital mixing system
* Video conferencing facilities which can link directly to over 1550 Victorian State schools.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/

Saturday, July 3, 2010

IBM Builds Animation Cloud for Multimedia Development Corporation

IBM and the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) have just completed installation of the ‘MAC3 Rendering Farm”, a cloud rendering service that is part of the MSC Malaysia Animation and Crective Content Center. Hoping to turn Malaysia into a hub of visual effects artists and animators by providing centralized remotely-available rendering services, the cloud offers an impressive 8x performance boost over local workstations.

“It is a well-known fact that rendering is expensive and the MAC3 high performance rendering facility will help local creative content companies, especially the start-ups, to overcome the cost barrier,” said Deputy Prime Minister Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin. “With this facility in place, Malaysia’s creative content companies will have the technological edge in their rendering and production processes. At the same time, it will also help them lower their costs,” he said.

Source: http://www.vizworld.com

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Architectural CAD Solutions, Effective Architectural Services in UK

Get quality solutions for your Architectural CAD projects. We provide Architectural Services for 2D Drafting, 3D Modeling, 3D Rendering, 3D Animation, 3D Fly Through and 3D Walk Through.

Do you need quality Architectural CAD Solutions at most competitive rates? We are professional architectural firm providing quality solutions for all architectural phases since last 6+ years. We have expertise, methodology and resources in conversion of architectural drawings in to digitize formats. You can save up to 60% on all over cost by outsourcing architectural projects to us.

Our Architectural CAD Services includes the following:

Architectural 2D Drafting
3D Architectural Modeling
Architectural 3D Rendering
3D Animation
3D Fly Through and 3D Walk Through
Paper to CAD Conversion
2D-3D House Plans
Interior and Exterior Renderings

We provide architectural services for various types of building like residential homes, commercial apartments, auditoriums, restaurants, hotels and special buildings like palace and sky scrapers.

Our experts are willing to work any time and they are responsible to provide you each and every detail of your architectural projects.

We provide services to various offshore architectural firms, interior designers, building contractors and CADD solutions provider. Our clientele spans UK, Australia, USA and other European countries. We have always provides flexible pricing system with maximum transparency for clients. We also offer discounts for our local clients.

Explore our strengths and gain more in your business by outsourcing architectural CAD projects to us.

Source: http://www.prfire.co.uk

Monday, May 3, 2010

Grants for animation works

THE Media Development Authority (MDA) is inviting funding applications for new animation projects under the International Animation Fund launched in partnership with FremantleMedia Enterprises.

MDA will co-invest up to $5 million for each qualifying animation project in any format, including television series, telemovies and theatrical features. Fremantle will be the worldwide distributor for the chosen projects.

Shortlisted projects, which must have a Singapore partner, will be required to do a face-to-face pitch to an evaluation panel comprising senior executives from MDA and FremantleMedia.

'We look forward very much to co-creating new intellectual property in and by Singapore's animation community in partnership with like-minded members of the animation cluster from around the world,' MDA's chief executive Christopher Chia said of the initiative on Monday.

David Ellender, FremantleMedia's global chief executive said that the partnership with MDA shows their 'belief in the animation resources Singapore has to deploy to the world market.'

Source: http://www.straitstimes.com

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

How To Select Best Animation Services Firm

With ever increasing avenues to advertise and promote your business, there are few methods as eye-catching as 3D Animation. The graphic design companies should be able to provide stunning 3D representations of your logo, characters, a concept you're pitching, or a catchy animation that illustrates a point. They should also provide prototyping of products you're trying to develop which really helps one visualize an idea. No matter the need or situation and the 3D team can provide powerful solutions that can bolster any business.

3D Character Animation

Nowadays, static and dull websites seem to be to out of the trend. Make your websites and presentations more entertaining and interactive. One way to liven your website is through 3D character animations. You should ask your creator to present you the most charismatic characters from the 3D world. Get character animation, flash character animation, character modeling, cartoon animation and all other kinds of 3D cartoon animation.

These 3D animation characters can not only have audio components, but move and express all the emotions you want to display. Using these 3D characters, you can make a lot of difference in the marketing and promotion of your services and offerings. The flash character animation should be created using the most advanced versions of flash and other animation tools. Hence, these characters will have real time body and lip movements. They can display all the emotions you ask for. 3d cartoon animations should be portrays of your imaginations.

These characters should be created as per marketing purpose and customer psyches. Only then these characters will make an indelible impression on the minds of the audiences.

Source: http://www.articlesbase.com

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Prices for Facial Animation Announced

Cubic Motion has announced that its pricing range for facial animation in video games will start at $7 per second for low-complexity characters, rising to a maximum of $32 per second for the most complex characters currently possible in games. For low-volume projects there is usually a small per-character setup charge. Mike Jones, Cubic Motion's Director of Production explained: "We feel it's important for potential users of performance-based animation to know that the process can be extremely affordable."

The UK-based animation consultancy creates custom software for clients but also builds in-house pipelines for clients who wish to outsource their facial animation directly to Cubic Motion. Dr. Steve Caulkin, Cubic's Chief Scientific Officer explains: "The key to offering such low cost, high-quality animation for games is that we don't rely on a single pipeline or any particular technology - instead we have a scientific team who rapidly identify the appropriate technologies based on the particular project. Facial animation is far more diverse than many people appreciate, and what is right for one client may not work for another.

A lot depends on the choices the client makes about rigs and their chosen game engine. The client also has to think about whether a marker-based approach is best for them and whether audio-based animation may be an appropriate addition to the overall approach. As for specific technologies, a few years ago, choices were very limited, but now things have changed. For example, you only need to scan recent SIGGRAPH proceedings, to see just how many excellent techniques are available in the public domain. This fact, alongside the growing maturity of powerful open-source machine vision libraries such as OpenCV, is great news for all in the industry, but with this choice, navigating the space and identifying the 'best' solution has actually become more difficult. We're not tied to any single technology - instead we're trying to provide an expert-led gateway into custom solutions. The result is pipelines that are tightly crafted to a particular project, resulting in much lower overall costs."

Cubic Motion was founded in 2009 by Mike Jones, Doug Tate and Dr. Steven Dorning. The scientific team includes Dr. Gareth Edwards, co-inventor of the Active Appearance Model, and Dr. Steve Caulkin. The company's advisers include Professor Chris Taylor FrEng OBE, Associate Vice President of Research at Manchester University, and Andy Wood, a games industry veteran and director of Peter Gabriel's Real World. The company's future plans include a range of standalone products, particularly in the field of real-time animation.

Source: http://www.woodtv.com

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Animation Business Quite Different From A Typical BPO

Indian icons in the information technology industry such as Infosys have often been tracked as true blue stories which serve as a beacon for any industry aiming to target the offshore space in services. Little wonder then that there are many companies that started out in search of the ‘holy grail’ of animation services — to be the Infosys of the animation world!

Public memory is very short, however, and almost no one knew about Infosys for over a decade before it became a corporate giant. At the time, it was a software company that honed its technical and management skills and evolved into a well-organised IT company before it saw a window of opportunity and could drive home that advantage.

The animation business is presently not comparable as there are hardly any companies (in the long form broadcast/theatrical sector) with that vintage and readiness to play such a game.

So, is this comparison with IT valid, and is animation all about technology play? Well, the entertainment and media business has been demonstrating substantial capabilities in the past decade. Although it is primarily content driven, its methods of delivery — including in the future the intervention of mobile and Net-based technologies — will make it a tandem technology plus content play.

Like the IT community did overseas, the electronic media has succeeded in delivering to both local and international markets locally created entertainment software in TV and movies. These media players have already demonstrated their global expertise in producing “live action” software! They now use repurposing or servicing methods to exploit their TV programming, to leverage already created libraries in world markets. But this did not happen as BPO (business process outsourcing)!

It happened because the local market was deep enough to allow original content to be produced. Finding additional revenues prompted the search for overseas pockets of consumers for a product/market extension. Animation has potential parallels in content production, provided the local markets find the financial ability to fuel such original content.

However, in my mind there is no controversy. While animation has several leverages through technology tools, it is primarily a media content business.Then, we come to the issue of scope for animation as a BPO business. For instance, how is the animation BPO business different from BPOs in other IT-enabled services sectors in India? In recent years, the BPO syndrome has caused a flurry among entrepreneurs and has caught the imagination of investors...

Source: http://www.financialexpress.com/

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Valuable Architectural Animation Services by AMI

Architectural modeling India is an Indian based firm providing valuable services for architectural animation and rendering services. It is like an animation studio whose pillars are based on creativity and innovation. Our firm is working on 3D animation projects from last five years. Our experts are handling complex and large volume animation projects for offshore clients. We allow you to visualize your thoughts in different ways and working according to requirements.

Our 3D architectural animation service includes:

• 3D Walkthrough Services: it is a tool that widely used by architects and engineers. We are using it to generate the interior and exterior 3D views with every minute detail. This service allows you to get realistic view of a building. It becomes an essential tool for complex projects.
• 3D Flythrough Services: we are making accurate visually enhanced presentations for engineering concepts by using 3D Flythrough services. We have a team of architects who ensure 3D Flythrough outputs as per clients’ requirements with perfection.

We offer 3D views, walkthrough and flythrough in making of Residential Buildings, Commercial Buildings, Corporate houses, hospitals, hotels, schools, universities, bridges, plants and factories. Our firm has various production houses at different locations in India.

We bring ultimate resources, software and expertise for our animation projects. We are making valuable relationship with our clients and providing maximum integrity and transparency. Due to maintaining strong relationship we have successfully completed international animation and rendering projects.

For architectural animation services we are using latest software like AutoCAD, Revit 7 and 3D Max. We are making virtual environment by using these software. Requirements can be easily changed as we are using latest technologies for animation and rendering.

You can reduce your animation project cost by outsourcing with Architectural modeling India. We offer low cost architectural animation services and that does not mean that you have to compromise with quality.

Source: http://www.your-story.org

Friday, January 8, 2010

Roy E. Disney Dies at 79; Rejuvenated Animation

Roy E. Disney, who helped revitalize the famed animation division of the company founded by his uncle, Walt Disney, and who at times publicly feuded with top Disney executives, died on Wednesday in Newport Beach, Calif. He was 79.

His death, at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, was caused by stomach cancer, a spokeswoman for the Walt Disney Company said. Mr. Disney, who had homes in Newport Beach and the Toluca Lake district of Los Angeles, was the last member of the Disney family to work at the entertainment conglomerate built by his uncle and his father, Roy O. Disney.

As a boy the younger Roy would play in the halls of his uncle’s studio, where animators often used him as a test audience as they toiled on movies like “Pinocchio.” As an adult he helped bring the animation studio back from the brink, overseeing a creative renaissance that led to “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King.”

But the soft-spoken Mr. Disney was primarily known for a willingness to question the company’s top managers, aggressively and publicly, when he felt they were mishandling the family empire. Some people in the company referred to him as its real-life Jiminy Cricket: a living conscience who was at times intensely disliked by management for speaking out.

read more.....

Friday, January 1, 2010

I&B Ministry seeks 10-year tax holiday for animation sector

The Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry has urged the Finance Ministry to rationalise the duty structure for digital head-end equipment and set-top boxes, and sought a 10-year tax holiday for the animation, gaming and visual effects (VFX) industry.

The proposals, a part of Budget wish list of I&B Ministry were submitted to the Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday. The I&B Ministry has also sought the inclusion of entertainment tax on broadcasting and cable sector in the proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime.

Speaking to reporters after submitting the proposals, Ms Ambika Soni, Union Minister for I&B, said a ten-year tax holiday would help India emerge as an international hub for the animation and gaming and that there was a need to incentivise them.

The I&B ministry has suggested that the basic customs duty for the head-end equipment should be brought down to zero to give an impetus to the digitisation in the country.

Currently, the basic customs duty on digital head-end equipment varies from 7.5 per cent to 10 per cent.

read more........

Outsource Animation Services Outsourcing Services