This is another TV commercial we just recently finished for Caspian Prestige Motor Oils.

This spot is also being aired on IRIB national TV during the World Cup games transmission.

The spot is a 30 second commercial for PAL D1 diffusion and took approximately two months to complete.

Concepts, storyboards and story reels were done by Kian Kiani. We have included the storyreel so that you can compare it with the final product; as you can see the client changed a lot of details

Caspian storyboard

There was also some pre-production concepts done by Faraz Shanyar.

Environment concept

by Faraz Shanyar

The spot was directed by Arezoo Ghandi and Faraz Sayyadi was in charge of the animation, shading, lighting, rendering and compositing.

Environment modeling and liquid simulations were all created by Reza Ramezani.

Caspian logo front

Caspian logo perspective

Editing the spot was done by Arezoo Ghandi and Bahram Najand.

We hope you enjoy this post and would appreciate any comments you may have.

Whether you are working as a freelance at home,  a small business or working in a large corporation, the way you handle your responsibilities and your work load has a direct effect on your personal life. Productivity is an important issue during our day to day routines, particularly in the animation and entertainment industries where processes are time-consuming and detail-oriented. Some projects may last up to 3 years and more and the amount of data generated may surpass trillions of bytes. So how can we find a way to enjoy our daily workload, plan for future projects and collaborate effectively in a stress-free manner?

The following is a list of some of the best blogs on personal and professional productivity and although each one of them is geared towards a specific nature of the subject, they all manage to give you a clear roadmap and insights into how to conduct your life with the best use of your time in order to obtain the best results.

Personally I am a firm believer in David Allen’s method called “Getting Things Done” and his book “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity” but it’s just my personal choice. He has a lot of other very useful stuff he sells on his site which are all geared towards making you more productive.

I have to stress one point and that is there is no magic formula or exact recipe to becoming a productive person and don’t expect to find your way by reading these blogs or books. These sites will give you a lot of useful information, roadmaps and methodologies but in order to make best use of all this info you will need to find the methodology or procedure that suits you most and then tweak it to suit your way of life and most importantly, STICK TO IT!!

1. David Allen’s GTD Times (http://www.gtdtimes.com/)

This blog is mostly geared towards David Allen’s methodology called Getting Things Done based on his world-famous book “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity” and although the articles may not be that enlightening all the time they provide some great podcasts that explain their method.

1. Freelance Folder (http://freelancefolder.com/)

Great blog for freelance writers, web developers and designers but contains a wealth of information on personal productivity

1. Freelance Switch (http://freelanceswitch.com/)

Very similar to Freelance Folder and a great resource; part of the Envato group that brings you ThemeForest and other great sites.

1. Life Optimizer (http://www.lifeoptimizer.org/)

Life Optimizer is about how to live life to the fullest through personal growth.

1. Marc and Angel Hack Life (http://www.marcandangel.com/)

Lots of practical tips to lead a productive life

1. Productive Flourishing (http://www.productiveflourishing.com/)

This site has very good articles and provides a set of free monthly planners that are very well thought out and useful.

1. Illuminated Mind and Body (http://www.illuminatedmind.net/)
2. Wake Up Later (http://www.wakeuplater.com/)
3. Persuasive (http://www.persuasive.net/)
4. Seth’s Blog (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/)

And last but not least, Seth Godin’s blog which is more geared towards marketing but does include some productivity tips from time to time and is always a great read.

Hope you enjoy this post and please include any other sites which you think should have been included in this post.

The Annecy International Animation Festival launched yesterday and is currently celebrating its 50th birthday! This is the world’s largest event solely dedicated to animation.The event consists of an animation competition, conferences and a film market (MIFA), in a rather friendly atmosphere where you can meet enthusiasts, professionals, major players and new talents.

You can check out the festival trailer here: Annecy Animation Festival Trailer.

As some of you may have noticed we have recently changed the layout and look of our blog hoping to make it easier to read and a bit more interactive. We apologize beforehand to our blog,  Twitter and Tumblr readers but it appears that our posts may have been re-posted to these sites due to this change. This usually happens because our blog API automatically posts anything we write on our blog to these sites and every time we change our layout we need update our blog posts to include new images, headers and info.

Apparently these services can’t tell the difference between an update and a new post, or I can’t figure out how to keep them from reposting old blog posts. Nevertheless you see our old posts being regurgitated on Tumbler and probably Twitter.

We apologize for this inconvenience but hope that our new layout will make your journey more pleasing and will provide you with a better reading experience.

We are also increasing our post frequency very soon and hope to be able to post at least 3 times a week, providing you with insight into the animation industry, software news and reviews, WIPs and many other interesting information.

We would appreciate receiving any feedback or issues you may have with the new layout so: Tell Us What You Think!

This is our very first short film created circa 2004. We are aware of its shortcomings and weaknesses but we love it like a first child!

We thought we should post it here for everyone to see just for the fun of it.

You can also view the same video on Vimeo:

We wish a prosperous and happy New Year and Nowruz to all our Iranian compatriots.
Nowruz marks the first day of spring and the beginning of the year in Iranian calendar. It is celebrated on the day of the astronomical vernal equinox, which usually occurs on March 21 or the previous/following day depending on where it is observed.

Happy Nowruz from Vishka Studio

The UN’s General Assembly in 2010 recognized the International Day of Nowruz, describing it a spring festival of Persian origin which has been celebrated for over 3,000 years.

Haft Sīn (هفت سین) or the seven ‘S’s is a major tradition of Nowruz. The haft sin table includes seven specific items starting with the letter ‘S’ or Sīn (س) in the Persian alphabet. The items symbolically correspond to seven creations and holy immortals protecting them. The Haft Sin has evolved over time, but has kept its symbolism. Traditionally, families attempt to set as beautiful a Haft Sīn table as they can, as it is not only of traditional and spiritual value, but also noticed by visitors during Nowruzi visitations and is a reflection of their good taste.

Haft-Sin

The Haft Sīn items are:

• sabzeh — wheat, barley or lentil sprouts growing in a dish — symbolizing rebirth
• samanu — a sweet pudding made from wheat germ — symbolizing affluence
• senjed — the dried fruit of the oleaster tree — symbolizing love
• sīr — garlic — symbolizing medicine
• sīb — apples — symbolizing beauty and health
• somaq — sumac berries — symbolizing (the color of) sunrise
• serkeh — vinegar — symbolizing age and patience

Other items on the table may include:

• Sonbol — Hyacinth (plant)
• Sekkeh — Coins — representative of wealth
• traditional Iranian pastries such as baghlava, toot, naan-nokhodchi
• Aajeel — dried nuts, berries and raisins
• lit candles (enlightenment and happiness)
• a mirror (symbolizing cleanness and honesty)
• decorated eggs, sometimes one for each member of the family (fertility)
• a bowl of water with goldfish (life within life, and the sign of Pisces which the sun is leaving)
• rosewater, believed to have magical cleansing powers
• the national colours, for a patriotic touch
• a holy book (e.g., the Avesta, Qur’an, Bible, Torah, or Kitáb-i-Aqdas) and/or a poetry book (almost always either the Shahnama or the Divan of Hafez)

We have recently created a new online presentation for our company using a very cool and free presentation software called Prezi.

I’m sure that most of you have already created or seen presentations on Microsoft Powerpoint but this is far more fun and interactive than the usual boring Powerpoint presentations.

Just go and take a look at our presentation and you’ll see what I mean. In order to get a better feel I suggest you use our presentation in Autoplay and Fullscreen mode (you can find these options by clicking on the “More” option on the lower right hand side of the presentation frame)

I just got back from visiting the Dubai Character and Licensing fair and decided to post a mini-reportage of this fair and inform you of what’s happening here in a series of posts entitled “Dubai Character Fair” of which this is the first part.

The fair started on Tuesday 27^th of October and goes on till the 29^th but next year the date will be moved by a month and it will start in November. The organizers decided, and rightly so, that the show was too adjacent to other important shows like MIPCOM, which is one of the major events of the year.

The exhibition takes place at the Dubai convention and exhibition center or World Trade Center as it is called here. The location is extremely well constructed and planned for all kinds of exhibitions and the organizers are very meticulous about their planning. This venue is in fact comprised of two major events with one obviously being  the Character and Licensing Fair and the other, the Dubai Game Exhibition.

I had attended this same exhibition last year very shortly and the things that were most noticeable were the absence of many important companies from the region. All in all the show was very scarce this year and it appears that the global recession had even touched the character and licensing industry in the region. Although the organizers insisted that the number of characters had tripled this year I didn’t get that impression and it was obvious that the show was not as popular as last year; more about that in the following posts.

Freej is one of the most famous and successful licenses created and launched in the Middle East and last year their stand was impressive boasting a huge and beautifully crafted miniature model of the virtual city the show takes place in. There were Freej memorabilia all around the stand and everywhere else you looked. This year I couldn’t even find their stand; I may have overlooked and may find them tomorrow but their participation is surely not at the same scale this year.

The absence of TV channels was also noticeable. SpaceToon was one of the channels that participated along a few others but this year the only one I have spotted so far is Cartoon Network.

The show also has a conference programme for both Character and Game summit and although the level isn’t that of a Siggraph, the speakers are generally very interesting and choose rather good subjects for their sessions. More on that later….

The most amazing moment came when I saw the Iranian pavilion in the Game Expo with at least 8 companies attending with some games that were far from bad. One of these games called Garshasp is apparently doing very good and has attended several major exhibitions. I wish them and the other companies good luck.

In my next post for this series I’ll go into more details about the companies attending and probably post some pictures too.

We are currently updating a compilation of our works on CG Portfolio.Please feel free to visit our profile and leave a comment; any feedback would be appreciated.

CG Portfolio is THE place to go if you want to check out digital art work created by talented 2D and 3D artists.

A mobile/phone/PDA friendly interface for has been added to our blog with progressive enhancement for advanced mobile browsers. You can now access our blog using your cell phone or any other mobile device and you will land on our mobile-friendly home page. Hope this will please some of our more techno-geeky friends!

This plugin has been developed by Alex King and his site Crowd Favorite to whom we are grateful for this great plugin.