Games2Win’s Crapster among Top 5 Orkut applications

After the success of Slapster, Games2Win.com (G2W) recently launched a new Orkut application – Crapster. At 9 pm on July 8, Crapster was listed fourth on the popularity scale among Orkut applications.Crapster is the Social Networking Site (SNS) version of an existing G2W game called Dungfoo Donkey. It took the entire G2W team two weeks to complete Crapster.Games2win Founder and CEO Alok Kejriwal said, “With Slapster’s success, we recognized that users enjoy a bit of spunk, wit and cheekiness. Most of our games are a bit naughty too, and manage to make users laugh as they play.” Remarking on Crapster’s quick success, he added, “Crapster gives users a unique and cheeky way to interact with their friends. It’s an engaging yet light-hearted platform. Users these days don’t take each other too seriously and love to laugh - Crapster allows them to do just that.”Alok further said that very soon G2W applications will be on an array of SNS sites such as Hi-Fi, MySpace, Bebo and Friendster.About the challenges faced while creating Crapster, Alok commented, “Every project is a challenge in that it needs to appeal to our users. Be it in terms of concept, simplicity in usage, level of interaction - the fate of the application lies in the hands of our consumers. We need to understand what users are looking for and deliver just that. Therefore the real challenge begins once we are live. It’s all about the reaction of users, and not so much the action of creating an application.”The next application, he promised, is sure to be just as innovative and unique and will be unveiled soon. G2W creates up to eight new games each month on Games2Win.com and soon plans to double this number. “Our SNS applications have proven to be a big hit and we will continue making our presence felt in this space by exploring more SNS platforms and creating new applications, thus allowing users to interact with each other in a unique G2W way. Our ultimate aim is to deliver one new game each day for users,” Alok concluded. Slapster, G2W's first Orkut application is currently leading in terms of popularity.

Be a web designer? Here’s how!

In today’s e-age, web designers are in great demand. Designing an attractive interface is indeed a challenging task, as it requires technical proficiency as well as a creative bent.Job profileAccording to Maharshi Vyas, a freelance web designer, “The job of a web designer is to arrange images, text and forms in an aesthetic form, using designing tools.” Explaining this further, Chaitanya Krishnan, web designer, Flip Design, says, “Web design used to be quite similar to other design areas like print and publishing design. In fact, a lot of present-day web designers initially came from a background of print design. However, with newer technologies and websites becoming much more dynamic, this is not true anymore. Today a web designer has to be able to visualize a lot of other things when designing a website: animation, dynamic content structures, Cascading Style Sheet (CSS), etc.” According to Krishnan, the job entails designing for all kinds of websites:- Sites that have static content, but are visually dynamic: Typically these sites have no more than 6 to 10 pages. The content stays the same, but through the use of Flash and DHTML/ XHTML one gets a rich/ fun experience.- Sites that have dynamic content (Content Management System (CMS) driven): Social networking sites are a classic example where the content of the site is always changing as users keep adding content.Options galoreAccording to Vyas, “Nowadays, many IT companies hire web designers who can develop websites and presentations for them.” Krishnan says, “You can get plenty of jobs at design firms these days as firms have now started realizing that there is more to communication design than just print and retail design - which is what many of the old companies have been doing for the past decades. IT companies also hire web designers to supplement their programming workforce.”Pre-requisitesThere are many paths that an aspiring web designer can take. Krishnan offers, “There are design schools that offer courses in communication design that have branches/ modules for web designing built into the course. A web design course is not to be confused with a web development course. The latter deals with the programming aspects of the website and is a different yet equally important field in itself. Web design is to do with the look and feel of the site. It also deals with other fundamental aspects of the site like the interactive experience of the user, communication requirements of the clients, etc. Web development/ programming deals with the backend of the site: the HTML, scripting, CMS system, etc. A good web design course will typically train you in the basics of design: colour theory, typography, form and space, etc. And then you study the implications of the digital medium on these concepts. Web animation and web game development are also usually part of the course.”Apart from doing a course from a reputed institute, “A web designer should have good aesthetic sense. He or she should be a good observer and have sufficient knowledge of colours,” adds Vyas. Krishnan avers, “A successful web designer should have mastered all the basics of design. He should have at least rudimentary knowledge of the backend technology. He should update himself with new emerging trends and technologies.”RemunerationStarting salaries range from Rs. 8000 to Rs. 10,000 per month. Nevertheless, with some amount of experience, you can easily go up to Rs. 30,000 per month.Future prospects“The field is developing in various areas. A web designer can also branch out into Internet marketing,” affirms Vyas. Krishnan enthuses, “The field is always reinventing itself. Every year there is something new - CSS, Ajax…and that’s just the tech aspect. As people’s tastes and demands change, the process of designing a website also adapts to them. Web designers are lucky to be in a field that is always in a state of flux. It can be challenging at times, but this field is for those who can’t imagine doing the same thing day in and day out.” - Excerpt from an article in Education Times, The Times of India

Aptech to open Animation Academy in Brazil

Aptech Global Learning Solutions will open its first animation training Academy in Brazil in May 2008. “The centre in Brazil will start functioning within three weeks. We have decided to open 35 new centres in countries like Kenya, Ethiopia, Russia and Vietnam this year. These centres will be a combination of Arena Animation Academy and Aptech Computer Education training institutes,” shares Aptech executive director R. Krishnan.“We will also be expanding nationally. New centres will be opened this year at Cuttack, Rourkela, Bhubaneswar, Durgapur, Guwahati and Dibrugarh,” he further adds.The course content for the two Academies is also going to change from May. With animation and computer training institutes mushrooming everywhere, Aptech is focusing on how students can get better jobs. Hence, some new modules and methodologies will be introduced.“We have introduced a specialised demo reel-making module in the syllabus this year. Earlier, the demo reel was just a part of the curriculum. Now this demo reel will act as the portfolio of a student,” Krishnan concludes.

ANIMATION OUTSOURCING TO INDIA

Animation outsourcing is happening because studios are coming up in developing markets that offer world-class infrastructure and quality processes to produce animation work that’s delivered on time and within estimated cost.
Procedure : The usual procedure is for preproduction (preparing the script, storyboard, and exposure sheets) to be done in the United States or other headquarter countries, after which, the package is sent to Asia for production (drawing cels, colouring by hand, inking, painting, and camera work). The work is sent back to the U.S. or other headquarter country for post-production (film editing, colour timing, and sound).
India’s animation sector is witnessing a major boom. Indian studios are popping up alongside software firms and call centres that do work for firms in the West. In films, television shows and electronic games, latecomer India has started to gain favour over more established animation centres such as Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea and the Philippines. And cities in India like Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Trivandrum have emerged as the country’s major animation hubs. The total animation production by Indian companies is expected to rise from $ 600 million in 2001 to $1.5 billion by 2005, while the total global animation production would touch $51.7 billion.Overseas entertainment giants like Walt Disney, Imax and Sony are increasingly outsourcing cartoon characters and special effects to India. The animation market in India today is characterised by the presence of multiple players including Crest Communications, UTV Toons, Pentamedia Graphics, Padmalaya Telefilms, Moving Pictures and Toonz Animation, Crest Communications and Jadooworks.
Set up with an investment of $7 million in 1999, Toonz Animation has emerged as one of the leading players in the nascent Indian animation market. Besides focusing on developing its own cartoon animation, skits, serials and full-length feature films for the export market, Toonz also has a co-production deal with Britain-based Tree House Production for a fun animation series. A full-fledged feature film called Tommy and Oscar is in the final stages of production at the Toonz Animation Studio, Technopark, Kerala. A team of artists and technicians is working frenetically to complete the film for the Italian producer Rainbow Productions.
Applied Gravity, a New Zealand-based company, has outsourced nearly 90 per cent of it animation work to Nipuna Services, the business process outsourcing subsidiary of Satyam Computer Servcies. An animatronics dog for Animal Planet (Discovery channel) for a popular episode called K9 to11 and animatronics models for New Zealand theme parks were some of the best-known creations of Applied Gravity in India.
The Walt Disney Company has outsourced some of its major animation projects to various studios across India. Cartoon Network is buying animation films made in India. MTV has added India to its outsourcing hub along with the Philippines and South Korea.
A recent US$14 million deal between Italy’s Mondo TV, Europe’s No 2 cartoon producer and distributor, and India’s Padmalaya Telefilms, is the latest boost to India’s creative reputation. Padmalaya will make 104 cartoon episodes for US$14 million and distribute Mondo’s library for US$15 million in cash and stock. Padmalaya, a unit of India’s largest listed media firm, Zee Telefilms, will also set up a 3D animation studio in Bombay to make cartoons for US$7,000 a minute - a third of costs in Europe.
India has become an outsourcing hub for animation films because:
India has a vast base of English speaking workforce: Animation, which requires familiarity with the English language, benefits when the work is outsourced to India. A number of animation companies in the country are also creating skilled manpower for the animation market through various training programmes.
Presence of good studios: India has the second largest entertainment industry in the world, after Hollywood. Animation studios in the country provide a large supply of low-cost, high-quality software engineers. A number of Indian animation companies have set up hi-tech studios (equipped with state-of-the-art hardware and software) to execute overseas projects.
A track record in meeting Western companies’ technology needs.
Low cost of animation services: The main reason why foreign entertainment firms are flocking to India is the cost advantage the country offers. For instance, in the US, animators can cost about $125 an hour; in India, they cost $25 an hour. The total cost for making a full-length animated film in America is estimated to be $100 million to $175 million. In India, it can be made for $15 million to $25 million. The rates for production of a half-hour television animation programme would be around $ 2,50,000-4,00,000 in the USA and Canada, it is in the region of $ 60,000 in India, the report says. Toonz Animation offers animation at 25 per cent to 40 per cent lower rates than other Asian studios and much lower than those of American studios.
India is, however, up against substantial competition from countries within the Asia Pacific region such as the Philippines, Taiwan and South Korea that have been active in the animation production market for a longer period.

Indian animation industry poised for growth

‘Hanuman’, 'Hanuman Returns' and now 'Bal Ganesh'…the string of successful animation movies is an indication of the fast growth that the Indian animation industry is poised for, after the development of some very advanced software.“As far as the Indian animation movie production is concerned, a new phase has now started after advanced software has been developed. Technology is key to the growth of the animation sector,” says Ashish Kulkarni of Jadooworks, a Bangalore-based animation company.As of today, India has about 200 animation, 40 VFX and 35 game development studios, but the country needs more workstations to make optimal use of the potential that the industry has.AK Madhavan of Crest Animation Studios, says: “At Crest, we get trainers from the US and Canada to train our staff and help them understand the current trends in animation in the world market. This ensures that the output is on par with the acceptable levels for international standards, especially Hollywood.”Both Kulkarni and Madhavan agreed that given the demands, animation moviemaking will soon emerge as a self-sufficient industry.Indian animation movie production, however, has had a rather shaky start. In 1984, when the renowned artiste Ram Mohan wanted to make an animation movie on the Indian epic Ramayana in collaboration with the Japanese filmmaker Yogo Sako, he was not given permission by the Government to go ahead.The Government said that the sanctity of the epic would be lost if a 'cartoon film' was made on it. Finally, Mohan had to go to Japan to make it as he and Sako were determined to present the Ramayana as an animation series.The movie, 'Ramayan,' executed under Mohan's leadership, created a revolution in the international market in that it made the Western world aware of the talent available in India for the first time.India subsequently saw an outsourcing boom. But, due to the high costs involved, together with shortage of manpower and technology, animation moviemaking stagnated after 'Ramayan' was released.Although animation studios sprang up in Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Thiruvananthapuram, they were preoccupied with outsourcing work. Some of them did create story-based animated work, but those were meant only for advertising commercials. It was only in 2000 that corporate houses set their sights on producing animation movies.UTV was the first corporate entity to plan animated versions of India Book House's popular 'Amar Chitra Katha' series in the 1990s. But the project did not get off the ground. A decade later, Percept Picture Company (PPC) brought to India its Hanuman series of animation features - 'Hanuman' and 'Hanuman Returns'.Made on a budget of about Rs. 15 million, PPC's first animation movie 'Hanuman' went on to earn Rs.70 million. PPC followed it up with 'Hanuman Returns'.Shemaroo is another Indian company that feels animation is good business. It has set up its own animation studio. Though Shemaroo's maiden animation attempt, 'Bal Ganesh', did not see the success of PPC's 'Hanuman' and 'Hanuman Returns', it scored in terms of quality.“Wait till our next animation production 'Ghatothkach, The Master of Magic' is released. Animation moviemaking is still in its infancy. It will take some time for it to stand on its own feet,” shares Shemaroo vice president Smita Maroo.India's advantage is that an animation movie can be made here for just 1/15th the cost of a Hollywood production.At a one-day conference on animation and gaming in Chandigarh recently, Punit Vatsayan, managing director of Mobera Systems Pvt Ltd, said the Indian animation and gaming industry is projected to reach the $1 billion mark by 2010 from the current combined revenues of jus $402 million.The future for India's animation movie sector, as these experts feel, is bright. A number of Bollywood production houses like BR Films, Adlabs, Pritish Nandy Communication and UTV, besides Percept Picture Company and Shemaroo, are into making animation movies.Some independent producers, like Sajid Nadiadwala, are also joining the fray. UTV's recent deal with Walt Disney Studios is expected to provide a good impetus to take the Indian animation moviemaking sector to a higher level. UTV already has four animation movie projects in the pipeline and a $20 million co-production deal with Overbrook, Hollywood actor Will Smith's production house.It is also planning a $10 million co-production with Porchlight Pictures. “Right now, we have five animation projects on hand,” UTV’s Alpana Mishra said. - Excerpts from an article in India eNews