Archive notice: This article was originally published on November 10, 2009. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
With the recently released animated film “Astro Boy”, the cult Japanese manga character makes the leap into cinemas. To create “Astro Boy”, filmmaker Imagi International Holdings Limited relied on Autodesk Maya software. Maya formed the core of Imagi Studios’ production pipeline, which extended from Hong Kong to Hollywood.
The manga series about Astro Boy, a permanently youthful robot boy, was first created by Osamu Tezuka in the 1950s. After rapidly gaining popularity, it appeared on television in 1963 as a black-and-white animated series—the first Japanese television series with an aesthetic that would later become known worldwide as “anime”. On October 23, 2009, “Astro Boy” made the leap to the big screen with its debut as a fully animated feature film.
Imagi Studios invested US$65 million in producing “Astro Boy”. The company’s production pipeline included concept and character development, screenplay creation and preliminary design work by a team in Los Angeles. It also included a team of more than 400 artists in Hong Kong focused on modelling, texturing, animation, lighting, rendering and compositing.
Francis Kao, founder and Creative Director at Imagi Studios, explained: “We chose Autodesk Maya as the animation platform for ‘Astro Boy’ because the program is very open, has good creative tools, and there are a large number of artists trained to use the solution. We did not merely use the software’s powerful functions. Our programmers developed custom plug-ins for Maya that allowed us to create high-quality animation efficiently.”
Imagi’s main business is developing and producing computer-generated films. The company’s animated film “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”, released in cinemas in 2007, was also created with Maya. It immediately reached number one in the US cinema charts—an achievement no animated film made in Asia had previously managed.
“For simulating foliage in ‘Astro Boy’, we used Maya’s paint effects together with our internally developed plug-in,” says Johnny Mak, Head of Technical Operations at Imagi Studios. “Having used Maya for many years, we have seen significant improvements in the software’s functionality. It repeatedly helps us create world-class animation.”