WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA. Clio-winning Los Angeles visual effects and design company A52's managing director Rick Hassen was one of a select few high-profile industry professionals to present at China's Computer Graphics Festival, which was held in Beijing on Oct. 9 and 10.

Hassen's presentation - attended by some 500 of the estimated 10,000 total festival attendees comprised of professionals from animation and production companies, game developers, hardware and software firms and TV stations, as well as students and professors from virtually every major Chinese art institution - focused on sharing insights into how small studios can accommodate projects that expand during the production process.

After screening the opening title sequence A52 created for HBO's dramatic new series Carnivle, Hassen described the challenges
that arose when the decision was made to forego an early plan to shoot live-action and instead to make it a full CG project. This plan was further complicated, he explained, by the need to deliver the project in High-Definition.

Detailing the standard issues of the firm's CG production pipeline, Hassen pointed to render optimization and actual rendering power. "For optimizing a render, our team will look at camera perspectives and lights and try to determine how any adjustments will affect the final quality of the image. We'll seriously consider approaches that reduce the render time 30-50% with little or no compromise to the image."

Regarding rendering power, Hassen mentioned outsourcing and renderfarms as viable options; however, in the case of Carnivle,
he revealed the math that led to a different decision. "The most cost-effective way for us to increase rendering speed on this project was to run our thirteen licenses of Renderman on faster processors," Hassen said. "Seven computers with dual Intel Xeon
CPUs running Linux were installed as a dedicated renderfarm, thus increasing our render speed 2.5 times over our existing SGI configuration.

"The Intel servers running Linux easily interfaced with our SGI workstations to provide a powerful, cost-effective solution that allowed us to deliver this project on-time while still having the ability to make creative adjustments along the way," Hassen
concluded.

"Providing the opportunity to meet Mr. Hassen and to hear his first-hand experience working on such a highly artistic and important project earned a great deal of appreciation from our attendees," said Professor Zhigeng Pan, general secretary of SIGGRAPH China Chapter.

This first China Computer Graphics Festival was sponsored by China's Image and Graphics Association, Microsoft Asia Research,
and Sina.com, the largest portal site of China. HP, Discreet, Softimage|XSI, Instec, Wacom and others also provided major support to the festival.

About A52
Established in 1997 as a home for the very latest high-end
photo-real visual effects technologies and the industry's most
talented graphic design artists, West Hollywood visual effects
and design company A52 creates award-winning imagery for the
world's most visually ambitious commercial and music video
projects. The companys work has been honored as being among the
very best throughout its marketplace, having received top honors
from AdWeek, Advertising Age, Creative Review, Creativity, Shoot
and Shots... and also having received AICP Show recognition for
four consecutive years along with recent Outstanding Commercial
Emmy, Andy, Automotive Advertising, BDA, Clio, British Design and
Art Direction, London International Advertising, One Show, PROMAX
and International Monitor Awards. For more information, please
call executive producer Darcy Leslie Parsons at 310.385.0851.