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What are the problems studios generally face in the production pipeline that lead to loss of money and time?
Amit Srivastava- Studios face problems in every process, not only the production pipeline. There is a lot of strategic investment being made in the industry. But despite that almost no studio in India has a pipeline that is functioning properly. This leads to a lot of problems in terms of getting the quality output on time. There are rendering problems, naming convention problems, referencing problems, etc. and a lot of these can be solved and streamlined through a proper pipeline. This will allow a studio to better utilize its human resources and get a better grab on its assets. Pipeline by definition is how different departments come together and take a job right from pre-production, through actual production, to post-production and transfer the assets from one location to another along with the review process with checks and balances. So in India if we need quality output, we need a robust pipeline.

What according to you are the infrastructure essentials of any studio in terms of pipeline?
Amit Srivastava- Regarding the pipeline there are a large number of open source and customized tools available, but there‘s not a single tool out there that you can buy that will work from day one. They all need customization for months. But pipeline in the end is more of a mindset. It‘s hard for any tool to come and solve your problem.

P Krishna Prasad- Also optimization is essential at every stage. If you optimize every component of the pipeline, the overall productivity will increase by as much as 75 per cent.

What according to you are the technological essentials that are overlooked by studios in India?
P Krishna Prasad- If you make any mistake in the initial design, it spreads across to the next two levels of design and your money is going to get blocked. If we have the initial design right, then we can go on adding components like network, storage etc. as we move on to the next levels. This way the design expands in the right form and there won‘t be any need of revamping the entire design in the end.

Using Linux, which is an open source OS on rendering servers, is a good option as it saves a lot of money which is otherwise spent on buying original versions of Windows Server Editions. Moreover, Linux supports Maya renderers and Mental Ray and its usage increases the performance by a minimum of 30 per cent. But for some reason, people prefer Windows. When studios start up with say twenty servers the cost of purchasing Windows Server Edition for all of them looks feasible. But, the problem arises when they increase the number of servers by a large count. Why should they pay for licenses when there is an open source tool that can render faster than Windows? However, Windows does come with some advantages such as better support and some applications only work on Windows.

Once you start work on Windows, you cannot move it to Linux because not all Windows plug-ins are supported by Linux. This can be avoided if some time is invested in finding the plugins that are supported by both the operating systems.

Also, Maya and 3DS Max support unlimited render licenses. So, when the number of servers is increased, there is no need to install the software individually in them. The trick is to know how to deploy the unlimited render licenses across all the servers.

How do you think following a standardized practice in production helps studios?
Amit Srivastava- Look at US. Studios in the US are known for their standards and once they have everything in place, they don‘t have to go through the entire value chain of the company to fine-tune things. It is easier for people to specialize if standards are in place. Even talent, quality and resources can be straightened out in pockets.

P Krishna Prasad- Every studio has a pipeline, whether good or bad and everybody follows some basic rules. Following a standard practice allows them to understand the stage of file at the given time, who is handling it, whether it‘s saved in the right place or not, its resolution, the layers etc.

Documentation is something that is majorly overlooked in Indian Animation. In regular IT industry there is proper documentation for all the machines, their locations, the problems that are arising at various levels and so on. This elementary mechanism is missing here. During external audits, documentation is required to justify the purchases and installation of hardware and software alike. Hence the practice of updating documentation every six months should be imbibed.

Why is optimization of resources so important?
Amit Srivastava- If you do not have a proper pipeline, optimizied IT resources, proper infrastructure and standards, you will have a lot of leaks in the system, and you will not be able to efficiently use even your human resources. If resources are used well then your needs will reduce and it will also save time and money. It all boils down to managing your costs and producing quality outputs.

P Krishna Prasad- The bottom-line is that you should know what to tune instead of increasing investment. This is what we have been doing for our clients for the past two years. With right deployment and audit mechanism, a phenomenal amount of money can be saved. People keep on investing in hardware, storage etc. without thinking that their existing systems can be boosted to perform 30 to 40 per cent ahead of its current level.

How do you implement the processes for optimizing the resources?
Amit Srivastava- For optimization we first audit the entire pipeline- network pipeline, the render pipeline, the storages, and see wherever the bottlenecks occur. We then fine-tune the infrastructure and software and suggest upgrades if necessary. We improve the performance and demonstrate it.

How does the scenario change when an SME studio changes into a multi-locational big studio?
Amit Srivastava- When you are a SME you are doing bits and pieces of the larger production. But when you transform into a big studio, you are handling all the features and it becomes crucial to have a proper pipeline in place, to handle the workload and to synchronize the entire information chain.

How are you going about the campaign for providing these packages?
Amit Srivastava- We are advertising and promoting the packages but we feel the campaign will catch on because of the low prices we are offering. We as a company, provide a lot of value to our key clients. Our key members are among the most sought after in their respective fields in the industry. We package all of this together and provide it to the SME studios.

Do you also provide the infrastructure along with consultation?
Amit Srivastava- DUX Soft is primarily a solutions company and we are looking at SPARX as our only product as of now. But as part of the complete solution, we do provide hardware and software from third parties. It is a completely transparent operation and we do it only on the request of the client when they want a single window operation. Even then, we are not partial to any vendor. The client is free to choose from all products or vendors available, and our job is to help identify the best ones that suits the clients needs.

Could you tell us something about Renderarm.com and SPARX?
Amit Srivastava- Apart from providing infrastructure and resource management, we also provide India‘s first Remote Render Facility. Most people do not grasp the importance of rendering because it is done after everything is made. But when you render you come across many problems and you have to redo things. Rendering is a capex intensive investment. You need the servers, manpower, the real estate etc. so we provide a cost effective centre outside the studio.

We have set up our own render farm and people can access it online. We have our own tool called SPARX running on it and it‘s on a paid-for-use model. Our studies show that when you set up your internal render farm, 60 per cent of the time it is lying idle. So it is a good business model for us and a cost effective one for the studios. SPARX is our own render scheduler and grid computing platform with an intuitive web-based interface. Renderarm.com runs on SPARX, and SPARX can also be installed at internal render farms at client studios. It works with all media applications. Recently SPARX got the PC Quest Best IT Implementation of 2008 Award!

Is SPARX a part of the package for SMEs?
Amit Srivastava- No, SPARX is a separate offer. We are already offering a low price for it. Our render farm is running on SPARX which is our own IP. It is a render scheduler along with a grid computing platform which has a very intuitive web based interface like Maya that allows you to preview, upload files, render them etc. We have done a test and found that it is much faster than MUSTER which is also a render scheduler. SPARX is also standardized on both Linux and Windows and on Linux it gives 33 per cent more performance than other leading tools out there.

What is WCCS?
Amit Srivastava- Along with SPARX we also support Microsoft‘s WCCS, i.e. Windows Cluster Computing Service. We are very keen on WCCS because it allows cluster computing on workstations and also on servers. WCCS provides 64 bit architecture along with HPC grid. We have worked with Microsoft to fine-tune WCCS on media applications and optimized it for deployment on work stations. So now even if you don‘t have a full-fledged render farm, or a small or even large render farm, you can install WCCS on your work stations, tie them together to the render farm and use the computers as an extended render farm. This comes in very handy when you have deadline intensive projects. Best part is that it functions like a normal OS.

So the advantages of using WCCS or SPARX are that you are not investing in extra servers and you are using the infrastructure that you already have to deliver on time and scale up.

Who are your key clients?
Amit Srivastava- Currently we are working with Sony Pictures Imageworks, we‘ve done some work for UTV, Trine, Auryn, Maya Entertainment, Sahara QED and Accel Animation to name a few.

Which are the areas DUX Soft is looking at for expansion?
Amit Srivastava- Right now we already have an office in Pune and Chennai and we look at Chennai as a growing market for SPARX. But besides that we have expansion plans into South-East Asia- Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Indonesia. We are also thinking of entering into US and we are working with Microsoft for the development of SPARX.

chaitra.shetty@animationxpress.com & ankita.shah@animationxpress.com

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