Electric Image Animation System
Encyclopedia
 |
This article or section reads like an advertisement. To meet Wikipedia's quality standards and comply with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, it may require cleanup. |
The Electric Image Animation System (EIAS) is a 3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
package published by EIAS3D. It currently runs on the Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
and Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
platforms.
History
Electric Image, Inc. was initially a visual effects production company. They developed their own in-house 3D animation and rendering package for the Macintosh beginning in the late 1980s, calling it ElectricImage Animation System. (To avoid confusion with the current product with its similar name, we will refer to this initial incarnation of the product simply as ElectricImage.)When the company later decided to offer their software for sale to others, it quickly gained a customer base that lauded the developers for the software's exceptionally fast rendering engine and high image quality. Because it was capable of film-quality output on commodity hardware, ElectricImage was popular in the movie and television industries throughout the decade. It was used by the "Rebel Unit" at Industrial Light and Magic
Industrial Light and Magic
Industrial Light & Magic is an Academy Award-winning motion picture visual effects company that was founded in May 1975 by George Lucas and is owned by Lucasfilm. Lucas created the company when he discovered that the special effects department at 20th Century Fox was shut down after he was given...
quite extensively and was in use by a variety of game companies.Bad Mojo
Bad Mojo
Bad Mojo is a computer game by Pulse Entertainment, released in 1996. The player is cast as Roger Samms, an entomologist planning to embezzle money from a research grant to escape his sordid life above an abandoned bar...
, Bad Day on the Midway
Bad Day on the Midway
Bad Day on the Midway is a CD-ROM game designed and scored by The Residents and a number of other graphic artists, including Jim Ludtke. The game won the 1995 'Macrovision International User Conference Award' in two categories - Best Entertainment Title and Most Innovative Use of Multimedia.The ...
However, only these high end effects companies could afford it: Electric Image initially sold for US $7500.
EIAS has been used in numerous film and television productions such as Piranha 3D, Alien Trespass, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Daddy Day Care, K-19: The Widowmaker, Gangs of New York, Austin Powers: Goldmember, Men In Black II, The Bourne Identity, Behind Enemy Lines, Time Machine, Ticker, JAG - Pilot Episode, Spawn, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, Galaxy Quest, Mission to Mars, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, Titan A.E., U-571, Dinosaur, Terminator 2: Judgement Day - DVD Intro, Jungle Book 2, American President, Sleepers, Star Wars Special Edition, Empire Strikes Back Special Edition, Return of Jedi Special Edition, Bicentennial Man, Vertical Limit, Elf, Blade Trinity, and Lost In Space. TV Shows:
The whole Truth, Lost, Flash Forward, Fringe, Surface, Weeds, Pushing Daisies, The X-Files, Alias, Smallville, Star Trek:Next Generation, Babylon 5, Young Indiana Jones, Star Trek Voayager, Mists of Avalon, Star Trek Enterprise...'.
Electric Image, Inc. was always a small company that produced software on the Mac platform and so never had a large a market share. Play, Inc. purchased Electric Image corporation in November 1998. The first version of EIAS released under the Play moniker was version 2.9. Play later released the 3.0 version. This was the first version to run on Windows, and to mark this move, Play renamed the package Electric Image Universe. Play was never a greatly successful company, and so Electric Image Universe stagnated during the time they owned it.
In 2000, Dwight Parscale (former CEO of Newtek
NewTek
NewTek, Inc. is a San Antonio, Texas-based hardware and software company that produces live and post-production video tools and visual imaging software for personal computers...
) and original Electric Image founders Markus Houy and Jay Roth bought back the original company from Play Inc. On September 19, 2000, the company bought back the shares of Electric Image from Play and set about to recapture the product's former customer base. The new company released version 4.0 and 5.0 under the Electric Image moniker. Then due to a licensing problem with Spatial Technologies, they dropped the Modeler program from the version 5.5 release, and renamed the package back to Electric Image Animation System.
Versions 6.0 and 6.5 were subsequently released with vast improvements to the rendering engine and OpenGL performance. Version 6.5r2 added FBX file importing capability. 6.6 added Universal Binary
Universal binary
A universal binary is, in Apple parlance, an executable file or application bundle that runs natively on either PowerPC or Intel-manufactured IA-32 or Intel 64-based Macintosh computers; it is an implementation of the concept more generally known as a fat binary.With the release of Mac OS X Snow...
support and finally drops support for Mac OS 9. Version 7.0 brought Multi-Layer Rendering, Image-Based Lighting, Raytrace Sky Maps and Rigid Body Dynamics. The current version, 8.0, added Photon Mapping, Fast soft shadows, area light, Quadratic light drop-off, EXR and 16bit image input support, Displacement Sea Level, new Weight maps tools, lots of workflow enhancement and Renderama improvements.
EI Technology Group Announces Sale of EIAS Intellectual Property
San Antonio, TX – January 12, 2010 – San Antonio based EI Technology Group (EITG) has sold the intellectual property rights of Electric Image Animation System (EIAS) to new owners Tomas Egger and the Igors . The sale includes the software applications: Animator, Camera, Renderama and all related modules.
This transfer will allow accelerated development and new technologies of the software to evolve, without limiting them to EITG’s budget as it continues development of Modeler.
Brad Parscale, President of EITG stated, “ This move is best for the future of EIAS. It puts the products in the hands of the artists and developers who use it most. EIAS will swiftly progress with new features as a result of this transaction.”
Market Positioning
The existing customer base for EIAS favors it for its fast renderer, its high output quality, and its camera mapping features. The tool set lends itself particularly well to hard-surface animation/rendering and other forms of non-organic tasks. It is most popular with architects and visual effects artists for TV and film.EIAS's primary competitors in the integrated 3D package space are Autodesk
Autodesk
Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational corporation that focuses on 3D design software for use in the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media and entertainment industries. The company was founded in 1982 by John Walker, a coauthor of the first versions of the company's...
with Maya
Maya (software)
Autodesk Maya , commonly shortened to Maya, is 3D computer graphics software that runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and Linux, originally developed by Alias Systems Corporation and currently owned and developed by Autodesk, Inc. It is used to create interactive 3D applications, including video...
, 3D Studio Max
3D Studio Max
Autodesk 3ds Max, formerly 3D Studio MAX, is for making 3D animations. It was developed and produced by Autodesk Media and Entertainment. It has modeling capabilities, a flexible plugin architecture and can be used on the Microsoft Windows platform. It's frequently used by video game developers, TV...
and Softimage
Softimage
Softimage, Co. was a company located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada that produced 3D animation software. Their flagship products, Softimage 3D and Softimage XSI, are used in the creation of computer animation for films, television advertisement, and video games...
, Maxon with Cinema 4D
Cinema 4D
CINEMA 4D is a 3D modeling, animation and rendering application developed by MAXON Computer GmbH of Friedrichsdorf, Germany. It is capable of procedural and polygonal/subd modeling, animating, lighting, texturing, rendering, and common features found in 3d modelling applications.- Overview:The...
, and Newtek
NewTek
NewTek, Inc. is a San Antonio, Texas-based hardware and software company that produces live and post-production video tools and visual imaging software for personal computers...
with Lightwave 3D.
Components
The Electric Image Animation System is not a single program, but rather a suite of several programs designed to work together. Each of the primary programs handles a particular part of the production workflow:Animator
Animator is the EIAS animation program. It can directly import 3D models in the Lightwave, 3D Studio, AutoCAD, Maya, and Electric Image FACT formats. (See also the Transporter section below.) In addition to animating models, Animator allows you to set up rendering settings. It efficiently supports the animation of very geometrically complex projects.Camera
Camera is the EIAS rendering program, known for its speed and high image quality. As of version 8.0, it supports ray tracing, Phong shadingPhong shading
Phong shading refers to an interpolation technique for surface shading in 3D computer graphics. It is also called Phong interpolation or normal-vector interpolation shading. Specifically, it interpolates surface normals across rasterized polygons and computes pixel colors based on the interpolated...
, scanline rendering
Scanline rendering
Scanline rendering is an algorithm for visible surface determination, in 3D computer graphics,that works on a row-by-row basis rather than a polygon-by-polygon or pixel-by-pixel basis...
, anti-aliasing
Anti-aliasing
In digital signal processing, spatial anti-aliasing is the technique of minimizing the distortion artifacts known as aliasing when representing a high-resolution image at a lower resolution...
, motion blur
Motion blur
Motion blur is the apparent streaking of rapidly moving objects in a still image or a sequence of images such as a movie or animation. It results when the image being recorded changes during the recording of a single frame, either due to rapid movement or long exposure.- Photography :When a camera...
, caustics
Caustic (optics)
In optics, a caustic or caustic network is the envelope of light rays reflected or refracted by a curved surface or object, or the projection of that envelope of rays on another surface. The caustic is a curve or surface to which each of the light rays is tangent, defining a boundary of an...
, radiosity
Radiosity
Radiosity is a global illumination algorithm used in 3D computer graphics rendering. Radiosity is an application of the finite element method to solving the rendering equation for scenes with purely diffuse surfaces...
, Photon mapping
Photon mapping
In computer graphics, photon mapping is a two-pass global illumination algorithm developed by Henrik Wann Jensen that solves the rendering equation. Rays from the light source and rays from the camera are traced independently until some termination criterion is met, then they are connected in a...
and global illumination
Global illumination
Global illumination is a general name for a group of algorithms used in 3D computer graphics that are meant to add more realistic lighting to 3D scenes...
. Camera outputs to Quicktime and EI's own Image format. The latter is directly supported by Adobe After Effects and Adobe Photoshop cs5.
Renderama
Renderama and Renderama Slave compose EIAS's distributed network rendering system. It allows for the rendering of a project to be distributed over a network's computers (i.e., for the formation of a render farmRender farm
A render farm is a computer cluster built to render computer-generated imagery , typically for film and television visual effects, using off-line batch processing. This is different from a render wall, which is a networked, tiled display used for real-time rendering...
). It supports both single and multiprocessor computers, taking advantage of all available processors to distribute the workload. It also supports rendering across platforms (e.g., Windows, Mac OS 9
Mac OS 9
Mac OS 9 is the final major release of Apple's Mac OS before the launch of Mac OS X. Introduced on October 23, 1999, Apple positioned it as "The Best Internet Operating System Ever," highlighting Sherlock 2's Internet search capabilities, integration with Apple's free online services known as...
, and Mac OS X).
Transporter
Transporter is a standalone program for converting 3D models from one file format to another. Primarily, it exists for importing models in formats that the other EIAS tools cannot import directly, and for exporting models to other formats. For instance, in EIAS version 8.0, Animator supports five of the most popular model input formats, while Transporter supports 29 formats. Transporter can export a model in one of 14 different formats, most usefully the Electric Image FACT format preferred by the other EIAS components.Modeler
Modeler saves its files in Electric Image's "FACT" file format for importing into Animator (see above). It supports ACIS modeling, "ÜberNurbs" (EIAS' subdivision surfaces modeling technology), LAWS (based on parametric formulas) as well as Boolean operations and other modern modeling tools.Modeler last shipped in Electric Image Universe 5.0. As a result, users of EIAS 5.5 and newer use a third-party modeler instead. As of this writing, Electric Image recommends Nevercenter Silo for this purpose. Form•Z
Form-Z
form·Z is a computer-aided design tool developed by AutoDesSys for all design fields that deal with the articulation of 3D spaces and forms and which is used for 3D modeling, drafting, animation and rendering.-Overview:...
from auto•des•sys is also popularly used as a companion for EIAS.
External links
- EIAS3D Website
- EIAS3D forum Website
- EIAS Benchmarks - EIAS Camera & Renderama benchmark Database
Third-party plugin vendors: