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Media convergence
The French production company Chaman Productions and Japanese games publisher Namco used the Alienbrain digital production management system from NXN Software to control the production of the computer-animated feature film Axis (working title) and its accompanying video game. The system was intended to organise large volumes of files and shorten production cycles.
Chaman and Namco also used NXN’s Remote Access Server to coordinate teams in France, Canada and Japan. The film and game were scheduled for release in the United States, Japan and Europe in September 2002.
International collaboration
Chaman developed the fantasy film at studios in Paris and Montreal, while another team of programmers and artists in Biarritz worked on the game. Data moved between the locations through the Alienbrain Remote Access Server. Namco also monitored development over the internet from Japan.
Yuzo Morita, Development Coordinator at Namco Japan, said the system enabled real-time collaboration between Paris and Tokyo and gave him a continuous view of production progress in France. Namco’s games activities are now part of Bandai Namco Entertainment.
Open software architecture
The film was expected to generate more than 120,000 images, each larger than five megabytes. Franck Malmin, Technical Director on Axis, therefore selected the scalable DPM system. He cited its open architecture and the ability to adapt it quickly to the production’s requirements. NXN also provided an interface to 3ds Max.
Faster production reviews
Before Alienbrain was introduced, a five-hour review session covered roughly five sequences. Chaman reported that the same approval work then required only one tenth of that time: project managers could identify, review and comment on about ten sequences in an hour. The deployment connected game development, film production and 3D animation in one managed workflow.
