MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: This is good news for small and mid sized animation and SFX studios in the country.

Rendering, one of the most time consuming and patience testing processes in the animation production pipeline is all set to become easier, quicker and simpler.

BCS CEO Reena Ashok presenting details about the renderfarm on rent at Anigraph 2004

Broadcast Consultancy Services, the first entertainment and broadcast support in India is now entering the business of renderfarms on rent.

It is commonplace in the animation business to judge the amount of production capacity in proportion to the size of a studio's renderfarm. The cost of setting up renderfarms being quite substantial, in India renderfarms are the prized posessions of a few large studios, while the rest aspire to have their own some day.

Renderfarm on rent is not a new concept internationally and even in India a few such services might exist on a smaller scale. BCS' offering however, will be the first of its kind in India in terms of size, scale and services offered. These would include remote access, real time previewing, FTP, online bill quote and online invoicing.

The advantages that a renderfarm on rent offers to studios are manifold. BCS CEO Reena Ashok points out, "A render farm being built specifically for the purpose of rendering has a higher efficiency rate as the system is only being used for undisturbed rendering. The rendering time taken is much lesser, resulting in flexibility for the studio in dealing with deadlines."

She further adds, "Incidentally right now in India each one has their own small render units/farms. Most of the time the same computer gets blocked for rendering as the one used for modeling/animation."

Renderfarms on rent does sound as a lucrative business, why has it taken so long for such a service to begin in India? to this Reena replied, "It is recently that the animation Industry in India has begin to grow in a manner which demands this kind of service. Besides the volumes, it is the connectivity factor that is playing a role".

"We are looking at all feature film makers who use sfx/vfx or any kind of animation, architects, animation houses, post production houses, game develpers and simulators." she added.