Voronezh Animation Studio completes the development of the Animation 3D Platform supported by RITDF

Voronezh Animation Studio has completed the second stage of software development for the Animation 3D Platform. The results and the prepared modules were presented as part of a grant from the Russian Information Technology Development Fund. The Animation 3D Platform provides a toolkit for 3D content creation, making it possible to replace foreign industrial software.

We have extended the functionality of the platform with new models to enable our 3D lighting unit to operate at production scale. While other departments control content complexity by working in only one area of the 3D stage, the 3D lighting unit receives 3D content from all units simultaneously, which is often impossible even for the most powerful computers. In addition, the content is becoming more sophisticated day by day, with more objects being added, and it is increasingly difficult to process everything manually using only standard approaches.

As part of the second stage, we developed a module that allows the 3D illuminator to control the entire stage procedurally through a graph of nodes that describes what our system should do. All actions, like loading a scene, deleting an object, adding a light source, etc., should always be performed on the entire scene regardless of its complexity. The system also allows you to load each area of the scene as late as possible and see how the configured graph affects the result. This approach allows you to rationally use computer resources for scenes of any complexity without slowing down the work of the 3D illumination specialist.

We have connected this system to a visualization module based on the open rendering library Cycles, which allows us to transmit all 3D content directly and visualize it using modern approaches to 3D visualization. Moreover, due to the openness of the program's API, we can connect other libraries at the customer’s request.

Therefore, the Animation 3D Platform is a modern domestic solution that enables assembling 3D scenes, developing appearances — including creating 3D hair for characters — effectively illuminating and visualizing 3D scenes. According to our calculations, our product will allow studios to substitute up to 30-40% of software in 3D cartoon production when used to its full capacity.

You can see our software in action. In November, the new animated series ‘The Steel Family’, entirely produced using the Animation 3D Platform, was released on Kinopoisk.

We are currently focused on creating modern Russian 3D cartoons using the Animation 3D Platform. Thus, we are working with our partners in the animation industry to test the platform, gather feedback, and integrate our product. We will soon launch our website, where you can learn more about our solutions and submit a request for access to the Animation 3D Platform.

The work on the Animation 3D Platform is not over yet. We continue to improve our product every day, responding to the needs of the animation industry and developing new models.