After receiving rave reviews for its high quality modeling and texturing work on Sci Fi Mini Series The Triangle, Indo German studio THESign Digital Pictures Entertainment is now co-producing and supervising Italy based 263Films’ full CG feature titled Dear Anne – The Gift of Hope.
Directed by Dario Picciau and written by Roberto Malini, the movie is based on Anne Frank the young Jewish writer who fled with her family to Amsterdam during WWII. Anne Frank who died at the age of fifteen in the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen, is considered a symbol of a tragic era. The feature is an educational movie about historical events that took place in Holland during the Nazi occupation.
Speaking to AnimationXpress.com, THESign CEO Gregor Strasz remarked,”For us, working with one of the most famous and youngest artists of our times, director Dario Picciau and writer Roberto Malini and the entire 263 Films’ team is a wonderful experience. THESign has joined the ‘Dear Anne’ team as co producers, adding facial animation, modeling, texturing and character set ups to the effects heavy production”
A total of 60 artists hailing from THESign and 263 Films are currently working on the project at Milan.
“The 3D feature is one of the most daunting challenges we have ever taken up and to make this educational experience come alive an international team of close to 60 artists is working at Milan for two years in a facility that combines cutting edge technology such as Europe’s most advanced motion capture studio ‘Raptor’ with innovative artistic experience” remarked Strasz.
“The project is halfway through” remarked Strasz , “And we are sure that inspite of a relatively small team we will complete the project within the next six months because each and every artist in our team is extremely talented having worked on projects like Final Fantasy and the Matrix”
Prior to getting involved in this feature, last year THESign delivered a handsome lot of CG modeling and texturing work for The Triangle to Unchartered Territory. Commenting on that project, THESign India CEO Jahagirdar shared,”For The Triangle, Our scope of work was Delivering High Resolution Models for the Key shots of the series, working under Supervision of Uncharted Territory, Highly Detailed Models and Highly Detailed Textures and Shader setup”
“The whaler ship was the most challenging thing in the project. We had no blue prints, but on the basis of the actual reference pictures we had top model the ship to the scale. This particular model involved lot of details including the clothes drying on the ship” he added.
“Shader setup was another challenge to come up with believable bumps, reflections, refraction, iron and metal feel. Our shader had lot of control over these things which makes 3ds max really a neat toolds max played really a vital role. Modeling tools are really sophisticated and simple to use. Normal map is a key feature of max using the material editor menu that helped us to build good shaders and material setups” he further added.
Commenting on THESign’s work, Autodesk Media & Entertainment’s Raman Madan said,””The work done by TheSign on The Triangle is truly world class and I take pride in the fact that their entire pipeline was based on Autodesk Media and Entertainment’s 3ds Max software. However, I believe that it is the creativity of the artists at TheSign that really made our products come alive and allowed them to realize their ideas. Given the recent spate of animation work being outsourced to India, The Triangle stands out for its unique 3D modeling and texturing. Working with an Oscar winning team is definitely a feather in the cap for TheSign and India as an outsourcing destination. It is also indicative of India moving up the value chain and increasingly taking on high-end work for Hollywood projects”
For Indian studios, collaborating with International studios offers great amount of opportunity, experience and exposure. Indian teams being involved in cutting edge projects, such as Dear Anne, will result in Indian CG & VFX moving up the value chain.
Click here to view additional images that THESign has shared with Animation Xpress.com
Dear Anne Pics & Main Poster courtesy : Dearannemovie.com
The Triangle pics and WIP shots courtesy: THESign Digital Entertainment