One strong need evident in Indian animators is the need to socialise amongst their own and the need to bond with and belong to the community.
Be it any profession, CA, Engineer, IT, MBA or any other, they all have their own clubs and elite gatherings. So why not animators too? After all it takes an animation person to get the humour in a rendering joke and a discussion about polycounts would go bouncer for anyone from other professions!
Other than than the new (Software) version release functions, there’s hardly any other get togethers for Indian animators across the country. It could be Knowledge Sharing, It could be just hanging their hair down and having a ball, it could be just meeting over some light talk and hi tea but whenever there’s a creative congregation (animators = height of creativity) its great fun and that’s what the Alias organised 3December was. Great FUN discussing animation and 3D!
The inspirational experiences that Disney Feature Animation’s (CO-Art Director -Chicken Little) Umakanth Thumrugoti shared with the 400 odd audience was the highlight of the event.
Uma joined Disney Feature Animation directly after finishing Animation School and has been with the enchanted Kingdom ever since. The first film that Uma worked on was Pocahontas. Reminicising about the early days of 3D at Disney, Uma shared with the audience,”At that time even Disney was trying to figure out 3D animation and we would get around 15 shots in a day! Since none of us knew then that 15 shots were too much too handle we actually used to do them! I put a lot of my undergrad engineering skills into practice and automated a lot of the tasks. Of course today the animators are given 2 to 3 shots a day”
From a technical director to Co Art director, Uma has done it all and has vast experience in these diverse yet related fields.
Uma gave a detailed presentation on the Corn Field Sequence in Chicken Little as well as the cartoony fluid sequence. Another highlight was the surprise Oscar nominated short film that he showed. Directed by Mike Gabriel the short film was breathtakingly beautiful and an amazing piece of 3Dartistry, with a fluidity and flexibility that could put up a challenge to even the most flexible 2D animation.
The lucky Draw at the end of the event as well as the occasional interaction between the ever popular Amy Quek from Maya (Amy refers to Mumbai as her second home and enjoys a great rapport with animator audiences) all added to the spirit of 3December.
Alias Marketing Programs Manager for Asia Pacific (Field Operations) Anne-Yoshie Narahara heads the 3December event in Asia and has been involved with it since many years right since inception. Speaking to Animation ‘xpress she said,”3December has been around for Seven Years. In Asia the first ever event was in Japan. Its been held for the past 3 years in Seoul, past 2 years in China and this is the first time we are doing it in India”
“We see this as a community event. Every region has its own agenda best suited to its needs. Alias is in a unique position as we have a vast gamut of users, right from animation to gaming to post production studios to product design teams to visualisation people. Our observation is that a lot of the professionals are interested to know more about the other related fields and 3December will help cross pollinate under the common bond of 3D”
Alias Marketing Manager (Asia Pac) Lynn Limm shared,” Along with the worldwide events we are also extending the event by having a dedicated online site 3December.com which will for a limited period of time feature some amazing content like Expert Interviews, Video Presentations, Behind The scenes, Contests etc”
HP & Intel are the global partners for 3December and in India the event was also supported by the regional Alias resellers Rahul Commerce and Tata Elxsi.