History

Legacy of ICE Animations

ICE Animations has been an important contributor to the local animations and VFX industry in Pakistan in a variety of ways. It is one of the few institutions that has actively spent its time and resources in experimenting with growth models.

For example, it has held the reputation of being the place where young aspirants in CG get professional training and their first exposure with local and international clients. Many have moved on to creating their own businesses and on to jobs in international studios.

Similarly, ICE Animations was also the only local studio to train and support a number computer engineers working on various aspects of CG. The pipeline team was also a part of such experiments laid out to improve quality and velocity of production.

Influential Projects

On the outset the financial and professional motivation of working in CG is towards the movie and gaming industry in the west, and there have been some VFX features executed locally that address that motivation. But, technically some of the projects that originated closer have been more Influential.

Bankay Mian was a TV show of temporary local fame because it addressed politics via a comical cartoon character, however, there were some technical achievements behind it. Firstly, it involved use of a state of the art motion capture system at that time. However, its pipeline was an important piece of the puzzle. The repetitive and limited scope of the production meant that automation could deliver many minutes of quality content per day with limited computing and human resources.

Mansour was a emirati TV show which required use of same assets over many episodes and several seasons. As more episodic animations project were acquired, the need for a production pipeline emerged to solve the recurring issues. This was a classic opportunity for developing a pipeline and remained the main motivation behind building of a new team.

The Pipeline Team

Back in 2012, A new team of raw computer programmers was given the mandate for getting trained in CG software and aimed to address production issues using agile development practices.

The pipeline team started with delivering tools for workflow and automation, addressing specific intra departmental issues. Later the effort focused on creating systems and addressing the pipeline as a whole by arranging tool menus and developing a digital asset management system.

The nature of software projects is such that they are perpetually under development. It requires experimentation and working through failures. So, it is during the course of the last three seasons of the Mansour and other similar projects a pipeline evolved which had a noticeable positive impact in the effective utilization of resources and helping artists focus on creativity.

The Way Forward

The local industry in Pakistan has now moved to newer model where the core teams are small and the type and size of projects has either remained unchanged or increased, and there is more reliance on project-based contracts and freelance artists.

While, in the current scenario the need for a permanent team to look after the pipeline has increased, the studios are unable to afford such a team on their own.

One solution could be the model of the electric company where one dedicated team can be used to address the issues faced by many different studios and production teams, and build on the work done over the years. The Nebula Pipeline initiative is an effort that hopes to address this gap of needs with this newer business model.