Legendary broadcast animation studio director Herve Tardif (DONKEY KONG COUNTRY) has chosen Ascension Technology's ReActor2 -- active-optical motion-capture workstation -- for his latest TV production. COTOONS is a seven-minute, 26-episode 3D animated childrens series being created by Tardif's Paris-based animation studio 3dclic.
"I chose ReActor for several reasons, said Tardif. Most importantly, there is less reconstruction (data clean-up) time when capturing with an active-optical system like ReActor2. With passive optical systems, if the actor walks in and out of the capture area, he needs to be re-calibrated. That takes a lot of valuable time in a production environment. ReActor2 does not need calibration."
Tardif further added that due to the size of his studio, any passive optical system would have only provided a very small capture volume. The lower price of ReActor2 compared to other optical systems was also a factor.
85% of COTOONS will be motion captured, while the rest will be keyframed. COTOONS (airing in early 2005) features a special universe designed for the preschool child -- a parallel world next door to Earth, where the four Cotoons (Punky, Tulip, Wabap and Zoom) live. In each episode, there is a dilemma for the Cotoons (and vicariously their viewer friends) to solve. COTOONS, produced by Film en Stock of France and Zone 3 of Canada, is about the senses -- observing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. In each episode, there is a two-minute sequence where two of the characters are composited over live-action.
3dclic (www.3dclic.com), headquartered in Paris, France, is a 3D production studio that produces television shows, commercials and interactive Web experiences.
Ascension Technology Corp. (www.ascension-tech.com), based in Burlington, Vermont, is a world leader in magnetic, optical and inertial motion tracking solutions for 3D computer graphics applications in animation, biomechanics, simulation, virtual reality, medicine and military targeting systems.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
