Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1474486
j u ly • a u g u s t • s e p t e m b e r 2 0 2 2 c g w 3 1 I N D U S T R Y I N S I G H T S CGW Partner Promotion P roduced by a geographically distributed creative team using Amazon Nimble Studio, "Picchu" follows the journey of an Andean girl named Mayu and the unconditional support of her mother. Throughout the animated short, written and directed by Amaru Zeas, Mayu must rely on her mother's teachings to over- come her fears, reflecting the reality of many children around the world. Set to pan flute music against the backdrop of the Andes Mountains, "Picchu" was brought to life by creative studio FuzzyPix- el, which produced the project in nine months. The making of "Picchu" will be highlighted by Amazon Web Services (AWS) at SIGGRAPH 2022 in booth #602, along with a variety of AWS and partner technology demos and customer pre- sentations. On Wednesday, August 10, 2022, AWS will host a series of AWS Innovator sessions at SIGGRAPH in room #118, including a fireside chat with Director Tim Miller, as well as panel discussions with Animal Logic, Framestore, and Pixomondo, among others. Stop by the AWS SIGGRAPH booth (602) for details, or visit: https:// pages.awscloud.com/Siggraph-2022 "Picchu" marks the second film created by FuzzyPixel and its first project to fully leverage Amazon Nimble Studio, which provides an end-to-end creative pipeline on AWS. As a creative team within AWS, the artists are the first users of cutting-edge cloud-based solutions, and their feedback informs development initiatives. Their experiences also shape tutorial content to better guide users through various aspects of the technology. Artists began "Picchu" asset development in July 2021 using Li- nux- and Windows-based virtual workstations powered by Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) G4dn instances. Centralized storage on Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) enabled the globally dispersed team to collaborate using the same data and environments. Open source tool Blender served as the primary creative application, alongside Autodesk Maya, Foundry's Nuke, Pixologic's ZBrush, and Adobe's Substance Painter. For cultural authenticity, Zeas enlisted Ecuadorian musicians to develop the short's soundscape. Local instruments are comple- mented by ambient environmental noise that adjusts based on the altitude of Mayu. Adding to the authenticity, Zeas' mother voiced Mayu's mother in the film and provided cultural guidance, while his father advised on architectural details. The team rendered "Picchu" primarily using Amazon EC2 Spot Instances, which were spun up automatically as needed through Amazon Nimble Studio. Having the entire studio based in the cloud also made it easy for Schleifer and the pipeline team to update tools in the background, and push changes to artists' virtual work- stations without interruption. Updates could also be rolled back, providing flexibility for experimentation while maintaining overall pipeline stability. For more information on using Amazon Nimble Studio in creative production, check out: https://aws.amazon.com/nimble-studio/ ¢ AWS to Debut "Picchu" at SIGGRAPH 2022 ANIMATED SHORT HIGHLIGHTS THE BEAUTY AND EDUCATIONAL CHALLENGES OF ECUADOR