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A
funny little animated robot has the normally staid world of
computers all of a flutter. |
| New
technology could be a big boom for the little guys |
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The
robot is the star of a four-minute film called The Painter,
created by Bristol production company 4:2:2, using experimental
technology from Hewlett Packard's Stoke Gifford premises.
The short film tells the story of a tiny robot artist made of
spare computer parts.
Stuck in a dark and gloomy room the little hero can only dream
of adventures by painting on the walls.
This changes the day he summons a genie, who grants him three
wishes and transports him to a tropical paradise.
The animation has been produced using an experimental rendering
service from the HP labs, which offers users a huge remote-access
computing capacity.
Dipping into the pool
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| The
Painter and genie take it easy |
It
means that instead of having to pay out a large lump sum to
buy new computer hardware, companies, especially small ones,
can tap into a pool of shared resources, paying only for what
they use.
"Companies like ours really have a hand-to-mouth existence,
never knowing when the next commission will come in," explained
Andy Davies-Coward, 4:2:2's chief creative officer.
"The idea of being able to latch onto computers when you
need them is really interesting."
The Painter was rendered, basically a process which completes
the animated picture by adding texture and detail, in just 17
days - a big breakthrough for a very time-consuming and power-heavy
process.
And for those interested in the minutiae of the details - the
four-minute film is composed of 50 different shots comprising
178 separate rendering jobs.
The most complex frame took 97 minutes to render and the average
time was 38 minutes.
And anyone hoping to make a CGI film the old fashioned way might
like to know that during the production 4:2:2 tapped into up
to 104 computers, generating 36 gigabytes of content!
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RELATED
LINKS |
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Hewlett
Packard
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