MachStudio™ Pro and AMD FirePro™ V9800 Professional Graphics- radically advancing the 3D computer graphics production process.
Traditional computer graphics production pipelines are time consuming and resource intensive and may force artists to make unwelcome compromises if they are to meet tight budgets and fixed deadlines. With MachStudio™ Pro, Hollywood-based StudioGPU has come up with a way to address those issues. The MachStudio™ Pro workflow is akin to a virtual 3D real-time studio environment, allowing artists, designers, directors, and technical directors to work with lighting, camera views and multi-point perspectives for a real-time view of frames as they will appear in the final rendered format. Designed specifically to exploit professional graphics processing unit (GPU) architectures such as those found in the FirePro™ V9800, MachStudio™ Pro can radically improve the way 3D computer graphics (CG) production is carried out. Production cycles that often take days or weeks can be dramatically reduced, yet still achieve an image quality that meets, if not exceeds, that generated by traditional means.
StudioGPU’s approach clearly delivers on its promise, as award-winning Zoic Studios can testify. V, the popular new television series on ABC, is a modernized and re-imagined version of the original 1983 mini-series. The Visitors, in spaceships hovering over every major city, have captured the attention of both of viewers and of the visual effects community. This success is due, in no small part, to the innovators at Zoic who have integrated a combination of MachStudio™ Pro software from StudioGPU and FirePro™ professional graphics into Zoic’s existing workflow, which includes Autodesk’s Maya and The Foundry’s Nuke.
There is more to the V9800 than sheer power. Yoni Koenig, Chief Scientist at StudioGPU says, “AMD Eyefinity Technology is a big plus as it enables artists to maximize workflow productivity. Working with MachStudio™ Pro, our customers interact with applications like Photoshop, bringing different textures and material into their 3D project. They then render each layer, maybe do some finishing in a 2D compositing program or they might even do some non-linear editing. Eyefinity enables artists to work with three large monitors, all at full resolution, so that they can see everything without having to toggle between them all on one screen. That’s a huge productivity advantage and we could actually go up to six monitors if we needed to.”
Summing up, Koenig comments, “Our product allows artists to see the results of their creative decisions in real time so that they can experiment much earlier in the process. AMD has been very supportive of all our efforts, clearly pushing the envelope on FirePro™ technology in terms of memory, cores and power consumption, enabling us to provide our customers with more options for creative exploration, more control, top-notch cinematic quality, in considerably less time and at a much lower cost, too. The V9800 is as smooth as silk! Nice work!”