High-Performance Computing Changes the Paradigm of Film Animation

 

Jeff Bell, the CEO of Tangent Labs, presents a unique studio customer story that highlights their evolution of the digital creative workflow using high-performance computing (HPC) in the cloud. A company with a strong focus on the creative community is embracing Blender for production filmmaking. This filmmaking includes high-fidelity animation films for Netflix* and others using Intel® oneAPI Rendering Toolkit (Render Kit), which reduces the film production time to market. Functions that once took days now take hours to deliver predictable rendering times. Tangent Labs can now deliver predictable films on budget and with the highest fidelity quality. The close collaboration between Intel and Tangent Labs influences what Blender brings to market as an open-source solution to the film animation industry.

In late 2020, Tangent Labs released their fresh take on a cloud-based digital production pipeline, LoUPE*. It was initially developed for use by sister company Tangent Animation to address the challenges faced by the community for years delivered on the AWS* Studio Cloud. Remote collaboration has never been a more timely topic, and LoUPE advances the traditional on-premise production workflow by seamlessly facilitating collaboration between studio locations and freelancers around the globe. Data is securely stored in the cloud, with intelligent transit between locations ensuring sync.

This session discusses the shared vision between Tangent Labs and Intel to provide improvements for creators. Topics include LoUPE, which is focused on the creative workflow, Tangent's partnership with Intel and their advancements in visualization development, and the Intel® oneAPI Rendering Toolkit.

Speaker

Jeff Bell is one of those unique people who brings art and computer science together. As part of the team that brought Alias | Wavefront Maya to market, Jeff has been a computer graphics supervisor, visual effects supervisor, and executive at IDT Entertainment and Starz Animation. Jeff was an integral contributor to memorable features including Everyone’s Hero, Hoodwinked 2, and Tim Burton’s 9. Recent credits include Ozzy and Netflix’s Next Gen, where Jeff became a trailblazer by producing the first animated feature created entirely in the open-source 3D content creation software, Blender.