Public Funding for Render Nation Limited

WISHES (Web-based Immersive Show Homes for Expedited Sales-engagement) is an innovative, business-focused, near-market, R&D project to develop a unique toolkit and delivery platform to design/build/host virtual showhomes: cost-effectively, at high quality and in expedited timeframes.

OneQ is a project that sets out to develop a turnkey solution for hybrid rendering. The OneQ product will be an on-premises appliance predominantly aimed at micro-to-small CGI/VFX and animation studios. It will provide local and remote artists access to a unified and scalable render queue management tool, that can simultaneously harness in-house render compute and cloud based IaaS render compute (public and private). In addition OneQ will also provide a simple but flexible user interface to manage: software licensing, storage, disaster recovery, remote user access and secure network configuration.

The FocalPoint Cloudburst project will develop a cloud-based Production Lifecycle Management (PLM) platform; and builds upon the commercially successful FocalPoint Server post-production workflow tool. The PLM platform address the fragmentation of production by joining the pre-production, production and post- production 'islands', and managing digital assets and associated metadata. The ability to collaborate locally and globally will encourage flexible working and deliver real cost savings. The simplicity of the interface empowers the user to focus on creativity. The benefits of Product Lifecycle Management will enable the UK Creativity Industry to scale and adapt faster, thereby minimising risk and increasing global competitiveness. The project consortium consists of Quad Logic Systems and RenderNation.

The Cross-platform Open Media Production and Operation at Scale Ecosystem (COMPOSE) project will assist traditional animation/CGI/VFX businesses to improve the scalability of their digital infrastructure and to better collaborate across supply chains. The project will build a demonstrator and focus on ways to reduce some of the main barriers to collaborative creativity; closed workflow cycles, proprietary datasets, high infrastructure investment overheads, rigid production pipelines which do not address multi-platform publishing. The project will be led by award winning studio Axis Animation (Gold Cannes Lion, Imagina Grand Jury Prize and Best Animation BAFTA winners) whose clients include Microsoft, Activision and Warner Brothers. The project consortium also includes Thinkbox, an industry leading software tool developer for both small and large film/CGI/VFX production studios (used on feature films such as Transformers, Harry Potter and Avatar), AIMES, a cloud technology provider who has led major TSB projects in digital media and infrastructure, and Render Nation, international industry experts in render service provision and production pipeline architecture.