NEWS: MDeC builds rendering facility for public use

KUALA LUMPUR: University students, animation companies or animators that need a rendering facility will soon have one to use.

The Multimedia Development Corp (MDeC) has built one in Cyberjaya, near here. The facility, which will start operations next month, is the only one in the country that's open to the public.

Housed at the MSC Malaysia Animation and Creative Content Centre, the facility will be equipped with state of the art infrastructure, said Hasnul Hadi Samsuddin, manager of MDeC's creative media department.

Speaking on the sidelines of a visual effects masterclass seminar here, he said the facility is equipped with 120 high-performance servers, each powered by dual quad-core Intel processors, with 80 terrabytes of storage and the latest rendering software.

Even before the facility can be opened to the public, Hasnul said, more than 376 jobs have already been submitted by animation companies in Cyberjaya.

"This was a test. About 100,000 frames of work were rendered and the animation companies were pleased with the results," he said.

The companies were also happy to note that they could process works larger than 100MB in size, at one go. Previously, the works had to be smaller because they had to be rendered on workstations, which took a long time to process large files.

With the opening of the rendering facility, content developers will be able to see the results faster and be able to shorten the time it takes to make changes.

Before this, said Hasnul, animators had to leave their computers running over night to render even a single frame of work. "This is inefficient. With the new facility, this task will be 8x faster."

Since the facility is open for public use, MDeC has put in measures to ensure that it is not abused. According to Hasnul, users will only be allowed into the facility after MDeC verifies them.

Once inside, the users will also only be able to access their own works and will be prevented from even looking at the works of others.

MDeC will brief new users on how to take advantage of the facility.

When it comes to animation students, Hasnul said, MDeC will liase with their lecturers instead.

MDeC declined to reveal the cost of setting up the facility. It has also not decided yet on the fee to charge for the service. MDeC is custodian of the country's MSC Malaysia initiative.