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Autodesk Maya Software Serves as Animation Platform for New Star Wars “The Clone Wars” Animated Feature Film and TV Series

Lucasfilm Ltd. and Lucasfilm Animation are using Autodesk® Maya® software to create the upcoming television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, just as they did to create the feature-length animated film that is now in theaters. Lucasfilm Chief Technology Officer Richard Kerris said, ‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars brings an entirely new look and feel to Star Wars by moving it into animation. We wanted to use technology that would live up to the high standards of Lucasfilm, and selected Autodesk Maya as our animation platform for both the film and TV series…’

Lucasfilm Ltd. and Lucasfilm Animation are using Autodesk® Maya® software to create the upcoming television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, just as they did to create the feature-length animated film that is now in theaters.

These are the first animated Star Wars projects from Lucasfilm. The projects benefited from a global production environment, with Maya as the hub for creating highly detailed worlds, characters and creatures, including Anakin Skywalker, R2-D2, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jabba the Hutt.

Lucasfilm Chief Technology Officer Richard Kerris said, “Star Wars: The Clone Wars brings an entirely new look and feel to Star Wars by moving it into animation. We wanted to use technology that would live up to the high standards of Lucasfilm, and selected Autodesk Maya as our animation platform for both the film and TV series. We chose Maya for its creative tools, extensibility and large user base. Maya is the backbone of our global production environment, enabling us to seamlessly share work between our United States-based creative team and our production studios in Asia.”

Digital artists in California, at Lucasfilm Animation Singapore and at partner studio CGCG in Taipei, have created more than 30 episodes of the TV series. The California-based creative team at Lucasfilm Animation establishes the storyline and key scenes, while animators at the studios in Asia produce the animation. This around-the-clock production chain generates an average of eight finished minutes of animation each week — an unprecedented productivity level for film and TV production.

Kerris added, “Maya has become the animation platform of choice for the film industry. It greatly reduces the complexity of working globally. At Lucasfilm, we’re constantly developing new tools, and we fit them into Maya. In essence, Maya is the concrete foundation that lets us explore new concepts and maximize productivity and creativity — without disrupting our global production pipeline.”

“Ultimately, Star Wars: The Clone Wars is about great storytelling,” said Danny Keller, animation supervisor at Lucasfilm. “From a technological standpoint, we need to be flexible in order to take the creative vision wherever George Lucas and supervising director Dave Filoni dream of taking it. Autodesk Maya allows us to do that.”

By Itamar Medeiros

Originally from Brazil, Itamar Medeiros currently lives in Germany, where he works as VP of Design Strategy at SAP, where he leads the design vision for the entire Human Capital Management product line, ensuring cohesive product narratives and establishing best practices.

Working in the Information Technology industry since 1998, Itamar has helped truly global companies in multiple continents create great user experience through advocating Design and Innovation principles. Itamar has also served as a juror for prestigious design competitions and lectured on design topics at universities worldwide.

During his 7 years in China, he promoted the User Experience Design discipline as User Experience Manager at Autodesk and Local Coordinator of the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) in Shanghai.

Itamar holds a MA in Design Practice from Northumbria University (Newcastle, UK), for which he received a Distinction Award for his thesis Creating Innovative Design Software Solutions within Collaborative/Distributed Design Environments.

2 replies on “Autodesk Maya Software Serves as Animation Platform for New Star Wars “The Clone Wars” Animated Feature Film and TV Series”

[…] Autodesk Maya Software Serves as Animation Platform for New Star Posted by root 1 day 3 hours ago (http://designative.info) Sep 13 2008 maya is the backbone of our global production environment enabling us to seamlessly of animation each week an unprecedented productivity level for film and tv production post a comment or leave a trackback trackback url powered by wordpress bu Discuss  |  Bury |  News | Autodesk Maya Software Serves as Animation Platform for New Star […]

[…] Autodesk Maya Software Serves as Animation Platform for New Star Posted by root 20 hours ago (http://designative.info) Sep 13 2008 maya is the backbone of our global production environment enabling us to seamlessly of animation each week an unprecedented productivity level for film and tv production post a comment or leave a trackback trackback url powered by wordpress bu Discuss  |  Bury |  News | Autodesk Maya Software Serves as Animation Platform for New Star […]

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