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IA: What has the work on Lighthouse changed for ProMotion (pipeline/process/other)?

JN: Our animation pipeline now is entirely open source, and aside from a few freelancers we use, all the work we produce is made with open source tools. Using Blender on the Lighthouse taught us a lot about how to set up scenes properly, since its particular strength is the linking of objects, scene and motion data. It was the first large project we did in Blender so now we would approach a few things differently, but we still managed to get the film out in time and to the client's expectation, which says a lot about the tools and the guys we have here in studio.

We're currently developing a 3D animated series called Kajimba on which we're utilizing all that knowledge, and I am comfortable to say that our production costs will be much lower then it would have been if we'd used any of the commercial tools we've used in the past. As a result of what we've learned over the course of the Lighthouse and on projects since, we’ve been able to really nail down the pipeline for the series.

IA: How long have you been working on Kajimba?

JN: Actually Kajimba has been in development for quite a long time. We did all the character design artwork in 2004-2005 and started on most of the models back then. It is self funded, so we've had to squeeze it in amongst our regular commercial work, making actual production quite slow. Now that the ball is rolling, we're moving a lot faster and have created and tested all the assets we need for the series. After our experience with the Lighthouse, I decided to push the production into a Blender pipeline and the knowledge we gained has given us a lot of tricks to use that will speed up production tremendously. The look and feel of the series is heavily influenced by my experiences as a boy, taking cues from many iconic Australian scenarios, and I think that this will give a lot of strength to the product when we finally get it to market.

A: Can tell us a little about this series? What do you expect from it?

JN: The series is aimed at an adult market by way of the coarse language used, although there are plenty of elements that kids will enjoy as well. I'm not locked into any particular approach but I really want to make the first episode in the way I originally envisioned it before we approached investors. That way I can make sure it is a genuine vision and not one clouded unnecessarily by one company’s marketing needs or a film’s funding requirements. I realize that it could limit the opportunity for investors, but I truly believe that a piece that is created in its true light will be the strongest.

What do I expect from the work? Actually it's pretty simple, I just want to make sure people get a laugh and see the art that ProMotion is able to create as a small independent studio. Ultimately the characters are all appealing in that laconic Australian way, so I don't see any major hurdles to building an audience. And the scripts we've developed so far are hilarious, so that's another positive as well.

IA: How is the creative process different when working on an animated series compared to your work on ads?

JN: Series work is a lot different. We've been doing commercials for many years and this will be our first series. We're learning a lot of tricks and tips to keep time/costs down for the production staff, all helped by the fantastic library and linking system inherent to Blender. A TV commercial rarely has recyclable assets, whereas our series is based around a single location with a set of main characters which will always be used in each episode. The characters and their rigs therefore need to be highly flexible and usable in all circumstances by the animator, rather than a custom rig for a particular shot in a commercial. The library system in Blender has allowed us to reuse rigs and facial work among characters. This also allows us to have several animators working on the same shot during production and to bundle our scenes and render offsite at really low costs, saving us the need to build and maintain a render farm.

IIA: Can you give us more detail about your history with blender and the decision to make your pipeline open source?

JN: We've been using Blender for about 18 months on various jobs and doing R&D. I really started to focus on that pipeline when we met Matt Ebb (Art director on Elephant's Dream) who allowed us to really start to push the envelope. His skills in Blender are world class, in fact he's been at the forefront of development of many features and toolsets that are currently in the software, so working with him has really influenced both our pipeline and our style. Like any package, the early days are tricky to make production viable, so it was expensive in time for everyone to get up to speed, yet all the guys here are keen and interested in their careers and they could quickly see the benefits of using such open software. My decision to pursue this was based around our initial experiences with the community. In the past, I never really had much help from my reseller or software manufacturers in regards to any of our commercial software. Any of our feature requests or bug fixes were either ignored or lost since we never saw any solution posted or presented to us, and some of the major bugs are over 5 years old. Any urgent bug or problem usually meant we had to completely rework a job or use some dodgy patch that had to be (expensively) babysat throughout the project. It was so refreshing to work with a toolset where if we found a bug or a feature that we needed, we could put our request to the community and almost immediately the work would be done/fixed or we'd have a workable answer or solution... (continue on next page)