As one of the largest producers of games, animation and visual effects in Iran, Raymon Media Company provides integrated, high-quality services to game developers and filmmakers. Located in eastern Tehran, the studio sits in the creative capital of the country, an area that is quickly becoming known throughout the Middle East for producing high-quality animation. With the visual effects industry in the region expanding at an exponential pace and bringing increased competition, the company needed to be ahead of the curve to stay on top.
Raymon Media occupies a 4,000-square-meter facility with capacity for approximately 250 animators. The company prides itself on identifying and supporting young creatives within the industry, and both attracting and retaining the rising talent. Although animation is still a relatively new industry in Iran, Raymon Media elected to invest in up-to-date technology in order to ensure that it can offer high-quality content that rivals studios around the world.
“It was important for us to broaden our offering and adopt new techniques to create realistic, natural and lifelike movements, especially as we look to take on more high-profile projects in the future,” explains Ali Nemati, head of the motion capture studio at Raymon Media.
Before adopting a mocap system, the animators at Raymon Media created characters using 3D animations. The process is effective and common throughout the VFX industry, but the team often found it challenging to create human characters that look and move with a high degrees of realism. With the development of a game called Javanmardan in the pipeline, the company recognized that it needed to take its character animation to the next level.
Powerful Insight
Raymon Media set its sights on creating a large, 154-square-meter mocap volume. But with no prior mocap experience, it was vital that the team received the right advice to help them create and maximise the best capture volume for their requirements. After looking at all options, Raymon turned to Vicon.
“We looked at a couple of other systems as well as Vicon, but two factors really stood out to us when making that final decision,” recalls Nemati. “First, there was a significant level of support offered to us by Vicon’s local distributor ASG Co. Having a presence on the ground was very important and certainly helped during the procurement process – especially the reassurance of support once the system was installed. The second factor was the superior quality of the Vicon system and software.”
Raymon Media chose Vicon Vantage cameras, investing in a 24-camera Vantage16 system. At 16 megapixels, the Vantage is able to deliver the high-quality data and tracking capabilities Raymon Media needed, along with speeds of up to 120fps. Powerful analytics and intelligent system updates would also come standard, ensuring optimum performance during capture sessions.
“After testing the Vantage system, it became clear just how accurate the tracking data was. Additionally, Vicon’s Blade software allows us to easily create and overlay images onto CG environments,” explains Nemati. “The system has provided us with high-quality results within a reasonably short amount of time.”
Raymon Media’s newly installed Vantage system makes it one of the largest mocap studios in the Middle East. The studio is now able to enhance the realism of its animations and shave time off post production.
Calibrating the Future
The studio is capable of full-performance, full-body capture of up to seven people simultaneously,. The consultation process with Vicon’s sole Iranian distributor ensured that the new studio fulfilled all of Raymon Media requirements — from using the full potential of the space to providing robust and reliable data by integrating Vicon’s Blade data processing and capture tool.
“For us, the challenge was guaranteeing a high-quality full-performance capture rig for our studio space,” Nemati adds. “The Vicon team used their knowledge and expertise to design the space and deliver a system that’s easy to use. They familiarized us with the whole motion capture process, teaching us how to set up the system, position and calibrate the cameras, capture the data using Vicon’s Blade software, and integrate it to create a seamless pipeline with our existing CG software. It’s been a great investment.”