Computer Graphics World

14 July 2009 age had to remain current enough so it could be used and modifi ed for three to fi ve years. Concept artists created the initial development boards, rendered pencil-sketched frames to inspire 2D vector-line work for the tool kit of turbine rings, logo elements, and environment components. Next, the creative team designed and modeled hundreds of individual components, each engineered to per form a unique function. This was done using dual Autodesk Maya and Maxon Cinema 4D platforms. "Every element had to be independently successful while also able to combine or lock together, like puzzle pieces, to create the full Goliath envi- ronment," describes Haslam. The artists then used Adobe's Photoshop to generate "mood" boards and style frames. They also generated rough Maya and Cinema 4D animatics, which established motion blocking for the story-line development and elements, and edited the material using Apple's Final Cut Pro. After the animatics were approved, the artists refi ned the environment architecture, texturing, and initial lighting pass. Each element then received fi nal lighting passes before being exported to Adobe After Effects for compositing and fi nishing. Upon completion of the work, Troika handed off all the 3D project fi les to ESPN on all the requested platforms: Maya, Cinema 4D, Vizrt's Viz, and Adobe's After Effects, Photoshop, and Illustrator. Haslam believes that Troika delivered what had been prom- ised. "Goliath achieved exactly what ESPN wanted out of the package. They wanted massive, and what we delivered is a 3D environment on steroids," he describes. "It's huge in scale, intense in detail, and dynamic, with textures and light- ing that have a realness to them. More important, we provid- ed ESPN with the knowledge of how the package elements work together, empowering their artists to adapt the tool kit as needed." –Karen Moltenbrey NEWS: WORKSTATIONS NEWS: WORKSTATIONS The Workstation Market: The Good and the Bad As expected, fi gures for the fi rst quarter of 2009 are down, but it's not all bad news No surprise, the other shoe dropped in the fi rst quarter of 2009. Exiting the fourth quarter of 2008, there was little reason to expect improvement entering the fi rst quarter of the new year. And, unfortunately, there were good reasons to suspect that things might turn out even worse. For one, while the market in 2008 included two poor quarters—with October escaping much of the initial carnage caused by the global economic downturn—Q1 2009 had a full three months' worth of deep recession to contend with. The result? Jon Peddie Research (JPR) analyst Alex Herrera has completed analysis of the quarter and reports that the market indeed took substantial hits in both unit volume and revenue. All in all, the fi rst quarter saw about 576.7 thousand machines shipped, representing a sequential decline of 24.5 percent and 26.9 percent year over year. Workstation Market Results It also wasn't a shock to see workstation ASPs suffer in the quarter, dropping 7.1 percent sequentially and 16.5 percent year over year. Experiencing a double whammy of sorts, ASPs were hampered not only by poor global economic conditions, but by the timing of Intel's workstation platform cycle, as well. The leading provider of processors into the workstation market launched a major platform release (Tylers- burg, with a Nehalem Xeon processor) just as the second quarter began. This left the fi rst quarter with older products, which most often see price reductions as the market antici- pates the arrival of new a model. So, where's the good news? Despite those issues, the market results—in combination with improving macroeconomic global indicators—offer up some hopeful possibilities moving forward. Herrera reports that while workstations in the fi rst quarter took that big turn- down, the closely related market for professional graphics hardware was essentially fl at from the last quarter of 2008. And that performance—no better, no worse—along with more optimistic reports on the broader economy's health, offer up hope that the workstation market should see bottoming in subsequent quarters. The signifi cant decline in ASPs illustrates the extent buyers were penny-pinching in the fi rst quarter of 2009, behavior that appeared to favor Dell in its ongoing battle with Hewlett-Pack- ard for workstation market supremacy. The low-cost entry segment grew in unit share, while the more performance-focused midrange dropped. In conjunc- tion, Dell's share of the fatter entry segment swelled, allow- ing Dell to raise its overall share of the global workstation market to 42.1 percent, while HP's declined modestly to 36.5 percent. The JPR workstation report is produced by Jon Peddie Research, located in Tiburon, California. The report can be purchased at www.jonpeddie.com. ■

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