What spec machines are you using it on at the moment?

At GRID we are setting up a new network of workstations at the moment (and because I was always so interested in workflow-optimisation and rendertime-management I got the responsibility for this at GRID  recently). The general idea is to provide each operator with two workstations, one dual 3GHz with two Gigs of RAM for the "heavy" jobs and one single 3GHz, 2GB RAM at the side, just to allow the operator to have some "processing overhead" in the daytime, like for example when the other machine is busy rendering a Digital Fusion flow or LW image locally.

How many animators do you have at GRID. In other words, how many of these dual workstations have you got?

At GRID we have a fine team of about 15 people and some extra freelancers we work with, everyone of them having its own talents when they come in, be it 3D modelling, storyboarding, animating, etc. But we do try to give everyone the opportunity of doing practically everything, from design up to the final composite, it makes an artist more complete I think if he knows what can be done all the way throughout the production pipeline to achieve a better result...

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As far as the renderfarm and the workstations are concerned: at the moment we are upgrading all the workstations, but when everything is complete in about three months from now, I guess we will have about 20 workstations, and 30 auxiliary servers and office machines throughout our facility, being used for 3D and all other levels of postproduction like editing, colour grading, up to HD and film res etc...

Are there any plug-ins you wouldn't be without?

Too many to mention: and this is also an advantage for LightWave, the plug-ins are plentiful and not too expensive, but Messiah and Relativity are always worth mentioning.

How long did "Triplettes de Belleville" take? When was it started?

On and off there were as many as six people at GRID working on the project for almost one year, not continuously though…

What was your job on Triplettes?

Thanks to the executive production company Walking The Dog, charged with the creative and production follow-up for mostly the entire CGI work on this film Grid was called upon to take care of a big part of the computer animated work on the "Tour de France" (3D cyclists, trucks and cars) sequence and the "Belleville" (cars and trucks) part. The Walking The Dog member Pieter Van Houte was sent to Canada for more than a year to coordinate the 3D work with his local team.

This was because the director Sylvain Chomet was based in the Montréal studio, set up for the classical 2D animation.

Pieter Van Houte coordinated Sylvain Chomet’s feedback on every CGI shot with us in Belgium.

Walking the Dog provided us with all the reference material and input from Sylvain Chomet and the team in Canada.

I tried to be Grid’s "voice" to work out technical issues and make sure the workflow was as fluid as possible.

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Do you do any animating yourself, or is your role purely supervisory?

I used to do some animation, and I still would like to do some more in the future but lately I have no time to do it. I try to be a problem-solver in all possible ways nowadays and help some great talent deliver what is demanded in this production-frenzy post world of today. Mostly I do supervision and a lot of compositing too.