Animal Logic

Located in Fox Studios, in Sydney’s Moore Park, Animal Logic has a staff of 200 people, with about 150 compositors, 3D and 2D artists, modellers, technical directors and animators creating images for television, commercials, cinema, computer games and the Internet. The company’s work has received much acclaim and The Matrix won an Oscar in 1999 for the best special effects.

So complex and painstaking is the task of developing computer generated animation and special effects images, that the opening sling shot sequence in Moulin Rouge was 4,000 frames long, which equates to approximately 2.5 minutes of screen time, (each frame representing approximately 12 MB).

The setting, Paris at the close of the 1800s, was entirely computer-generated. It included a 2D foreground and 3D background, minute computer-generated characters in the windows of buildings and details such as French balustrades.

With the decision to extend its HP workstation deployment, and replace older workstations, Animal Logic sought a proven solution that would provide its creative team with an advanced, robust and efficient technology platform. Having already deployed HP x4000 workstations, configured specifically for 3D animation and 2D effects and compositing, it chose a natural progression to the HP xw6000s.
Additionally, the company decided to migrate from a Windows 2000 Pro environment to a Linux Red Hat environment.

“Our technology is like the brush and canvas for our 2D, 3D and design teams,” said Xavier Desdoigts, Animal Logic’s Director of Operations.

“Flexible, efficient and cohesive technology ensures our team can focus on their creative skills, creating, manipulating, sequencing and checking images, and designing the look and texture of the finished work.”

“It is important that we have technology suppliers that understand what we need to do and are able to respond with the right level of service and product”
– Desdoigts, Animal Logic

Storm FX’s and HP’s knowledge and interest in Animal Logic’s business needs has contributed to the three companies developing a strong relationship. The proven reliability of the HP workstations and strong service support has fuelled confidence in the platform.

“It is important that we have technology suppliers that understand what we need to do and are able to respond with the right level of service and product,” Desdoigts said.

“Our technology partners have worked closely with us on our deployment and we know that we can rely not only on their service but also that they are proactively seeking to meet our business needs.

“HP is capable of supplying more than just workstations and it gives us the assurance that we can look to one supplier over a number of years for our IT infrastructure.”

Storm FX has also helped Animal Logic link into beta testing programs to ensure it remains up to date with the latest software developments and HP provides next day support services. To ease the deployment, HP has provided deployment tools such as Linux disk images for efficiently building and customising Linux kernels.

Industry: Animal Logic is a digital production company at the forefront of the visual effects industry.

Solution: Deployment of customised HP xw6000 workstations, building on the HP x4000 deployment, and with integrated software tools for producing sophisticated graphics and effects for film, television and the Internet.

Hardware:
- HP xw6000 workstations, with dual Intel Xeon 2.8GHz processors, 1.5GB ECC DDRRAM, nVidia Quadro4 980XGL Professional Graphics Card, and IDE hard disk.
- HP x4000 workstations, with dual Intel Xeon 1.8 GHz processors, 1GB RAM, nVidia Quadro DCC Professional Graphics Cards and either IDE Hard Disks or External SCSI
Disk Array.

Software: Adobe After Effects, Maya Alias/Wavefront, Nothing Real Shake, Discreet 3D Studio Max, Discreet Combustion, Eyeon Digital Fusion and Softimage XSI, operating in a Windows 2000 Pro and Linux Red Hat environment.

Challenge: Deliver a customised, efficient and high performance workstation solution backed by on going support and a clear development path.

Benefits: A cost-effective, tailored solution configured to help Animal Logic’s team create exceptional special effects in a seamless and efficient environment.