| Tonkawa, OK
(6/01/2003) –
Digital-Tutors (DT), a service of PL Studios, Inc., has
started production of "The Backwater Bunch", a 3D
animated adventure story for all ages. The Backwater Bunch
is the story of an underwater fire department whose trust,
teamwork, and sole existence is tested through the rescue of
one of their own. The adventure takes place in a galactic
community far beyond the realms of planet Earth. Soon to be
released on DVD with almost two hours of behind the scenes
footage taking you through the full production pipeline.
"We have created a new
style of workflow to better serve the artist. Each artist can
work remotely from different locations while keeping in
constant communications with the rest of the development and
technical teams," says Papa Georgio, founder of PL
Studios and director of the DT team. The development and
approval process have been simplified by creating a database
of concept art, models, forums, and progressions. Each artist
has access to the postings, status reports, and job
assignments within the production team.
Also included in the DVD will
be behind the scenes features on how DT produced and created The
Backwater Bunch. Follow along to see the team work on
script revisions, concept art, recording of dialogue,
modeling, texturing, animating, rendering, and assembling of
the final scenes.
The Backwater Bunch is also a
key component of a new training kit that is centered around a
large scale project. "Traditionally training material
from other facilities have been based upon smaller projects
with commonly used tools and methods. Because The Backwater
Bunch is a complete animated production, we can train all
levels of animators from beginners, intermediate users, to the
advanced," says Papa.
"We use Maya 4.5 on this
project, because it's really easy to customize and modify to
fit our needs. We use a Flash MX based interface to connect
and install scripts from one location to another,"
explains Papa.
"Over the years we've
met some very gifted artists and pooled them all together from
different parts of the US. They work really well together and
things have been flowing smoothly. The artists were
specifically chosen because of their creative style and past
accomplishments. We are really lucky to have such a strong
background of talent." added Papa. Artists include: Joe
Turner, Art Director; Papa G., Producer / Senior Animation
Supervisor; Kyle Green, Senior Creature Supervisor; Tatyana
Golubeva, IT Director/Infrastructure Architect; Brad Matson,
Senior Editor; David Lefebvre, Assistant Visual Effects
Supervisor/Animation Technical Director; John Moncrief, Lead
Modeler/Simulation Lead/Assistant Editing Supervisor; Dustin
Bennett, Texture Lead / Lighting Assistant; Duane Jay,
Assistant TD for Animation/ Assistant Modeling Supervisor; and
Jeremy Williams, Render Manager.
Digital-Tutors (DT) maintains
a video-based web site that offers free on-line training in
animation, visual effects , motion graphics, as well as web
design. DT’s training covers various industry standard
software applications such as: Adobe Photoshop, ImageReady,
Macromedia Dreamweaver MX, Flash MX, Fireworks MX, and
Microsoft Frontpage for graphic and web design; Adobe After
Effects for motion graphics and visual effects; and
Alias|Wavefront Maya for 3d modeling, animation, dynamics,
rendering and fur.
Visit http://www.digital-tutors.com
to learn more about Digital-Tutors and to take advantage of
free video-based on-line training. Contact Brad Matson,
580.628.6777,
e-mail: bmatson@digital-tutors.com
or Papa G: papa@digital-tutors.com.
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