 |
|
The School of Film and Digital Media at Savannah College
of Art and Design (SCAD) prepares talented students for careers with
the world's top film studios by teaching aspiring animators
to master the world's most-advanced animation technology using ATI's Mobility FireGL™.
In their continuing efforts to improve the curriculum and
stay ahead of other educational institutions, the faculty recently
standardized on HP's Compaq nw8000 mobile workstations powered
by ATI Mobility FireGL™ graphics accelerators from ATI Technologies.
These mobile workstations have the ability to run the same
demanding 3D applications that were once tied only to large
stationary workstations.
Faculty and students using the mobile
workstations have the benefit of high powered 3D animation
and visualization tools that they can take with them wherever
they go-in the classroom, on the set, at home or in the dorm.
As a result ATI's graphics technology is getting rave reviews
for its 3D performance. |
"At its core, the art of animation combines craftsmanship
and cutting-edge technology to really bring art to life," says
Patricia Beckmann, who oversees 15 professors and up to 400
students who work on 600 different workstations. "The
skills of the animator are certainly vital, but the right technology
is critical in giving 3D pictures a realism that really wows
an audience. The ATI FireGL graphics technology consistently meets
or exceeds our high standards and expectations for performance
and reliability."
State-of-the art animation programs used at the school include
Adobe After Effects and Premiere, Macromedia Flash, Dreamweaver,
Alias Maya, Xpress DV, Discreet 3ds max and Pixar RenderMan,
to name just a few.
Ms Beckmann, who teaches advanced character animation to graduate
students making short films and animated characters, says ATI FireGL
graphics has virtually eliminated past problems with animation
frames being dropped or only partially rendered in an animation
sequence. In addition, she notes that more complex tasks are
being handled easily and reliably since the introduction of
ATI's FireGL™ graphics technology.
"We are handling much more advanced projects and it's
just easier to get around a complex model and get it to move," she
says. "Today, I have no problems with high-resolution
Maya animation models, whereas prior to adopting the ATI FireGL
graphics, we would often rely on a low-res version of the animation
in order to be able to see it quickly enough. The ATI Mobility FireGL™ graphics have given us a new dimension of speed and
the ability to work in real time."
The animation industry's technology changes rapidly and ATI
is helping to push the boundaries for animators, she adds. "Since
1995, rendering time has been chopped down from an hour a frame
to maybe a minute a frame or less. Today, innovations such
as ATI's FireGL graphics technology are giving us better tools,
truly streamlining the production pipeline," she says. "There
has been a great deal of 3D software progress in recent years
but the software advancements could not have taken place without
the advanced development in graphics hardware."
ATI FireGL is instrumental to 3D animation. Cheryl Cabrera, a
professor of 3D Character Animation at the School of Film and
Digital
Media, teaches junior, senior and graduate students in 3D character
creation and animation. "ATI's FireGL graphics card has
been instrumental in letting us work with more complicated
3D animation models and in allowing more complicated movement
by those models," Cabrera says.
Much of the animation work being taught is geared to motion
picture special effects, and being able to work in real time
reliably is crucial. "The more complex the character animation,
the more we need a graphics card that lets us manipulate an
environment in real-time, as opposed to waiting for the computer
to catch up with what we're doing," she says.
"ATI's FireGL graphics gives us tremendous possibilities
in terms of what we can do in 3D animation, thanks to its speed
and graphics capabilities."
Cheryl says much of the work she does involves Maya 3D software
that lets animators create 3D animation from scratch, and she
has high praise for the way ATI's FireGL™ graphics card brings
images to life.
"For 3D character animation, the ATI Mobility FireGL technology,
in terms of the 3D capabilities it provides, is really key
to our work and success. The ATI FireGL graphics board lets us
process information and work in real time."
Savannah College of Art and Design
The School of Film and Digital
Media offers undergraduate and graduate programs leading to
a Bachelor or Master of Fine
Arts degree as well as a Master of Arts degree. Graduates of
the school have gone on to create unforgettable special effects
for hit films such as Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones,
Star Wars Episode III, The Incredibles, The Matrix, and Matrix:
Reloaded, A Shark’s Tale, Polar Express, as well as a
variety of television shows and commercials.
Savannah College of Art and Design, which has more than 50
facilities located in historic Savannah, Georgia. The college
has 350 faculty members and more than 6,000 students from every
U.S. state and more than 80 countries.
Visit
Savannah College of Art and Design
Product Information
