Intel ® Visual

india’s animation industry
Clockwise from top left: Scene from The Incredible Hulk
(2008, Marvel) was created in part by Rhythm & Hues
Studio; HOP; The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian;
and The Golden Compass.
learned by falling down and getting back up. In those days, we didn’t know
how to build a storage system, so we used the workstation hard disks to do our
renders. We soon realized that wasn’t enough. When faced with a bottleneck in
terms of a networking issue or storage, we solved the problem and moved on.
It gives me great pride to say that we didn’t miss a single air date.”
Today, Crest boasts state-of-the-art systems that rival any global studio, another
source of pride for Madhavan. “On the floor today we have about 400 graphic
seats, using Hewlett-Packard and IBM workstations. About a year ago we added
30 or 40 Dell workstations. Our storage servers and render farms are largely HP.
We use Intel processors—multi-core, quad-core—and all kinds of configurations.”
Setting the Stage for a Bright Future
Madhavan is enthusiastic about the future of India’s animation industry.
“When it comes to technology and the creative competence, we’re far ahead of
China, Philippines, Korea, Malaysia, and even Singapore. A lot of Indian
production facilities are delivering great animation quality for the television
and the DVD market space. We are a long way from doing feature films, but
we’re far ahead of many Asian countries in the long format space.”
After nearly a decade of growth, Madhavan believes India has an edge in
terms of developed talent. “It’s not only because we are an English-speaking
country, but we’ve also adapted to the cartoons and humor. If you see Alpha
and Omega, you will find in the credit list 260 names—all Indian talent—who
worked on the movie.”
Summary
Thanks to big investments in technology and infrastructure, India’s animators
and VFX artists are taking on more complex projects and pushing their skills
to the limit. It’s only a matter of time before full-length animated feature films
are the norm. Until then, expect many more glowing reports from industry
boosters, and hang on for the ride. •
intel visual adrenaline no. 10, 2011 38