A majority of Indian Animation players big and small are eager to know more about using technology to add an edge to their business models. Quite a few of these professionals and entreprenuers (mostly from Mumbai) were present at AnimationXpress.com‘s AITF, presented by Intel.
Amongst the top highlights of the conference was the panel session “Critical issues in technology decisions” Moderated by AnimationXpress.com Managing Editor & CEO Anand Gurnani, the panel comprised of MEL‘s production consultant Jai Natarajan, Anibrain Director Jesh Krishna Murthy, DuxSoft CTO Krishna Prasad, Director of SMG Group Intel Technology India Pvt Ltd Rajesh Gupta and FX Graphics Proprietor Vivek Malhotra.
The pragmatic perspectives and genuine advice offered by the panelists were matched by the keen involvement and interaction of the audience.
“While approaching a high end CG project, what are the technology challenges you face?” was the first question shot by Anand Gurnani.
Giving an example of ‘ Toonpur ka Superhero‘, the live action cum CG Animation feature which is under production at MEL, Natarajan said, “Amongst the main challenges we face, one of them is working on virtual backgrounds and few factors including date of actors when you are working on a composited animation film. Also if you are locking the look and feel of your character you need to have a good co-ordination with your director and we are fortunate to work with someone like Kireet on Toonpur.”
Giving some valuable advice to the audience, Jai urged “Take a pragmatic and thorough approach. Test all the technology that you plan to utilise in your project pipeline and don‘t forcibly try to get positive results with your tests by conducting them in environments with easier loads and requirements. The testing phase comes in the beginning of a project and even if the trials fail, it is good news, because you can then make amends and find solutions. It is much better then the plight you would be in, if the solution failure came crashing down in the middle of the project”
Later the discussion went onto shedding light on technological aspects. Jai explained how building a pipeline can help in the better execution of project and as storage of data is amongst the most challenging problems, Jai said “We work on multiple layers and multiple rendering, but its not possible for everyone to buy a render farm. To keep a track of all the work done is not an easy task so we should start optimizing our investments to get a better output.”
Directing the discussing forward, Jesh Krishnamurthy elaborated on basic problem which one faces in terms of using the right technology, building pipeline amongst others. The main point on which Jesh emphasized was the data storage system. “In order to store your data, you should break down your data and use a central storage system”
Today coding test is most important to overcome any coding challenges, which is common in the workflow . He also stressed on the advantages of using code and programming. “Don‘t keep a mental block to using programming to create tools and solutions, you can do it. I must confess that I wasn‘t really good in mathematics but we‘ve really created a lot of useful solutions at Anibrain by using programming and coding. Right from pipeline tools to plugins too enhancements, one can do a lot with code,” shared Jesh.
Intel‘s Rajesh Gupta give suggestions on utilization of technology. “We are looking at the usage model and developing computing systems with high graphics. Hanging of system is one of the major problems we face when we work on many files at a time. We as a tech provider, sometime faces these challenges but we have researched and developed a better solution for it”
“These days its not just about fastest being best! There are many things such as power consumption and heat that are equally important. I would also like to urge technology professionals from within the audience that they need to draw upon the hardware power of dual core and other advancements by developing pipeline tools that make the most of them” he added.
Almost every panelist emphasized on data storage and managing skills. Even Vivek shared on storage system and assets management. Stated Vivek, “Storage & Asset Management are amongst the two most important things that quite a few studios big and small tend to take lightly. These are very important and one needs to really make sure that they have a solution in place”
“We should opt for asset management as it gives the accountability (every artist is accountable for his/her work) and also pin points the weak area and at the same time it also finds the best artist. Apart from all this, we should also take care of storage system which should be centralized” he added.
Duxsoft‘s KP opined that “Consolidation is extremely important and so is the way in which you plan the architecture of your hardware workflow. Also I believe that the advice that technology professionals give needs to be heeded and given more weightage by the management. Rendering is an area where a lot of studios can go wrong in terms of cost, quality as well as timelines…. one needs to have a deep analysis of this process”
Another interesting topic was that of Asset Libraries wherein a lot of digitally created graphical and code assets could be utilised for future projects…..
The panel session had begun at around 10:45 pm and went on till beyond 11:30…. but going by the faces in the audience, the session was worth the wait!
