SAN FRANCISCO - To deliver high quality 3D animation via the Internet, the 3D production house D-Freedom Zone (www.dfreedomzone.com) has developed the proprietary realtime rendering technology RUSH, which enables visualization and delivery of high-quality 3D animation content to any PC.
Seeing the need for a streamlined procedure for directors, producers and visual effects artists to interact, Rush allows these members to collaborate remotely via a secure Web server on works-in-progress. Scenes can be viewed at high resolution using a small data file and feedback can be made in realtime.
RUSH uses Alias|Wavefront Maya as the authoring source whereby animations are created then exported to the compact RUSH format with one single command. It is powered by a high-speed renderer capable of 8-, 16- and 32-bit rendering. RUSH shortens the time it takes to display 3D content on the Internet. Textures are progressively compressed and low-rez versions of some objects are loaded first allowing rapid display. Higher resolution objects are then loaded visual quality improves while the scene is playing. Animators maintain control over the file size and the corresponding image-quality tradeoffs so they can adjust the file size depending on the needs and computing capabilities of those that will be reviewing the work. RUSH can be run from over 90 percent of the PCs on the market today. A demo of the software can be seen at he company's Web site.