An in-depth Study on the Animation Industry - Philippine Institute for ...

Today’s smaller studios are tak<strong>in</strong>g advantage of the current wave of
technological advance, the collapse of workstation price performance and the
ascendancy of <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>gly powerful W<strong>in</strong>dows NT personal computers. Off the shelf
animation software that maximizes work-group output while m<strong>in</strong>imiz<strong>in</strong>g much of the
need for staff programm<strong>in</strong>g will be the next shoe to drop.
While there were many changes with<strong>in</strong> the global computer-animation <strong>in</strong>dustry
dur<strong>in</strong>g 1997, there is one th<strong>in</strong>g that has not changed - the <strong>in</strong>dustry's ever-upward growth
pattern. The actual dollar figure for 1997 worldwide computer-animation production
volume totaled about $15.7 billion, a 35% <strong>in</strong>crease over 1996 figures.
The same factors that fueled the computer-animation <strong>in</strong>dustry's growth dur<strong>in</strong>g the
past few years were still at work <strong>in</strong> 1997, the underly<strong>in</strong>g one be<strong>in</strong>g the ever-<strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g
popularity of computer animation <strong>in</strong> all its many manifestations. This generated
<strong>in</strong>creased demand for computer-animation production, which <strong>in</strong> turn kept hardware and
software sales runn<strong>in</strong>g at a high level. A grow<strong>in</strong>g proportion of these system sales were
for W<strong>in</strong>dows NT-based software and platforms, which cont<strong>in</strong>ued to strengthen NT's
position toward becom<strong>in</strong>g the dom<strong>in</strong>ant operat<strong>in</strong>g system for computer-animation
production.
Although there are still more DOS- and W<strong>in</strong>dows 95-based computer-animation
systems <strong>in</strong> use today than NT-based systems, new growth <strong>in</strong> the marketplace is
concentrated on the latter, so much so that NT-based systems are challeng<strong>in</strong>g Unixbased
systems at the higher levels of animation production. In fact, at the end of last
year, the number of NT-based systems <strong>in</strong> use produc<strong>in</strong>g commercial-grade computer
animation exceeded the total of Mac<strong>in</strong>tosh- and Unix-based computer-animation
systems comb<strong>in</strong>ed.
Sourced from the <strong>in</strong>ternet, the number of computer-animation systems <strong>in</strong> use
totaled more than 250,000 at the end of 1997. The NT-based systems accounted for
29% of all systems <strong>in</strong> use, while the DOS- and W<strong>in</strong>dows-based systems represented
45%. Mak<strong>in</strong>g up the difference were Mac<strong>in</strong>tosh systems at 12% and workstations at
15%. Both Mac<strong>in</strong>tosh- and workstation-based system categories fared better <strong>in</strong> 1997
than had been anticipated: Mac<strong>in</strong>tosh lost shares at a slower rate than had previously
been forecast <strong>in</strong> The Roncarelli Report; and workstations actually ga<strong>in</strong>ed shares. This
<strong>in</strong>crease <strong>in</strong> workstation performance resulted largely from an <strong>in</strong>crease <strong>in</strong> demand for
very-high-end computer-animation production by the film <strong>in</strong>dustry and the purchase of
SGI-based systems by offshore start-ups that thought it necessary -- to better promote
their capabilities -- to have some <strong>in</strong>stalled base of SGI systems <strong>in</strong> addition to the NTbased
systems that were their ma<strong>in</strong>stay.
1997 was a watershed year for the computer-animation <strong>in</strong>dustry, with rapid price
reductions for basic, universally available PC-style computers (coupled with the
significant <strong>in</strong>crease <strong>in</strong> their power and capabilities). Also dur<strong>in</strong>g that year, the
<strong>in</strong>troduction of economical and truly functional W<strong>in</strong>dows NT-based computer-animation
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