With just three days left before the ZOL Startup Challenge finals, this short series is profiling each of the five finalists in the challenge, exploring what they hope to achieve and how they intend to do so.
Startup: Sadomba-Mahari
Product: AvisPar Visual Package
The Team: Kudzai Sadomba, Kurai Chikwangwani and Nyasha Sadomba
Sector: 3D Graphics
Product Summary: The packages is a group of programs for the rapid creation and development of 3D graphics and animations.
Product Status: Beta testing
The idea of the AvisPar Visual Package was conceived by Kudzai Sadomba, a gaming developer with, according to the startup, 10 years of programming experience. Sadomba Mahari pitched the AvisPar suite of applications at the Startup Challenge in Harare on 03 August 2011, and secured a place in the 5 finalists battling it out for the top prize on 08 September 2011.
Here’s a description of AvisPar provided by the startup:
AvisPar is basically a group of programs for the rapid creation and development of 3D graphics and animations of high quality. The package is built around very common Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and thus is multiplatform (can run on different operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OSX and various Linux distributions). Among the APIs used to create the AvisPar is OpenGL which is the current industry standard in creating 3D graphics. The package has various special features and extra components essential for the creation of high quality, state-of-the-art media products and it also gives the user that unique and exciting experience that makes him comfortable as it is more powerful and easy to use.
The current situation for animators and film producers in Zimbabwe is that they need garages of processors to render high definition 3D animated clips, there are frequent power cuts and there is need to create content and compete at a global level. This has led to the development of the package. AvisPar is GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) reliant, thus easing on memory and processor usage as the rendering process is dependent on the power of the graphics card and not the PC processor or memory (all rendering is in real time).
Features of the package include:
- OpenGL based – thus multiplatform
- Real-time rendering
- Fast and compact programs
- In built rapid creation of assets
- Cheaper motion capture (Offline motion capture)
- Dynamic object control
- Multi file format support and manipulation
- Support for all major 3D file formats and picture file formats
- Scripting language, customisable and easy to use (novel)
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2 comments
As always, nice feature. This is, however, where I become like my good friend Muzukuru…
I am a 3D Art enthusiast and know a bit about the software and the field…having tried to create my own Engine for learning purposes(it was a caveman, so I wont even boast that it was good). Amongst all the different types of software, there are some opensource alternatives that are generic, comprehensive or specific…some of very very high quality and used in previsualisations and, in some cases, actual production.
To mention a few that can be used in the 3D creation pipeline, there is Wings3D, Yafray and, particularly, Blender. Blender has been used to produce production quality animations. It is an all in one and arguably the best match to the more costly commercial packages like 3D Max, Modo, Maya and others.
I am hoping that AvisPar has a niche or fills a gap that is lacking in some of these packages, so they do not waste their talented efforts in creating something from scratch. I know nothing yet about the final product, but just being a voice of reason as a fellow techie.
I do,otherwise, wish AvisPar all the best!