BOUJOU BRINGS LIFE TO THE JIM, JAM AND SUNNY HOUSE

Special-effects behind the popular childrens' ITV show

10 April 2007, Oxford: 2d3 a leading developer of visual effects software and part of the Oxford Metrics Group, has revealed that its technology enables Wish Films to create the realistic setting for the house of the new CITV children’s programme Jim Jam & Sunny. boujou software provides an environment which is seamlessly motion matched to the foreground, giving the surroundings an incredibly natural appearance.

Jim Jam & Sunny is an innovative, live action series for children aged 2-5 years, from the makers of The Tweenies. Jim Jam & Sunny are a brother and sister that play and learn with their exciting toys Gigi, Nobby, Bot, Slim and Mouth.

To ensure the outside of the house has a ‘real life’ look, the show’s CG artists have to create composite shots layering the foreground over the background; making it look like one set. The garden and sky start as blue screen footage which is imported into the system. Each shot is then exported as a sequence of targa files to be tracked inside boujou.

“Its ease of use with Maya, an animation and modelling program used to create 3D, full-motion effects, makes the process a lot faster,” says Mark Ford, visual effects coordinator at Wish Films.

“One of the main benefits we’ve seen from boujou 4 is that the camera footage comes with the sequence attached to it, which means the shots can be picked up from boujou straight into maya.”

Once the sky is rendered out as a targa sequence, the visual effects team can composite the foreground over the new CG background. This means whenever there is an outdoor scene, the clouds are always moving in the right direction.

Ford continued, “The integration is seamless and because it imports so easily into maya, I’ve actually nailed some shots in less than 10 minutes!”

“A big part of the programme is outdoor play; it’s something that children easily relate to. Buying the right camera tracking software for us meant something that would make our jobs easier,” concluded Ford. “Having conducted thorough research, we decided on boujou because the interface was very easy to understand and it has a clear workflow. Our relationship with 2d3 is excellent too.”

Nick Bolton, chief executive of Oxford Metrics Group said: ”Jim Jam & Sunny has the rare ability to grab the attention of young children, which can only be put down to the shows creators. I’m delighted that 2d3 have been a part of creating a programme such as this, which proves yet again that boujou is the preferred choice for post-production teams.”

About Wish Films
Wish Films intends to produce high quality indigenous programming for children in the UK, from pre-school to pre-teen, with a strong universal appeal and the ability to transfer easily to other territories. For more information visit: www.wishfilms.com

About Oxford Metrics Group
Oxford Metrics (LSE: OMG) is a group of technology companies producing image understanding solutions for the entertainment, defence, life science and engineering industries. Be it for capturing the movements of actors (for the movie industry), sportsmen (for video games or improving team performance), children with Cerebral Palsy, rehab patients and animals (for medical, life science and research industries) or virtual reality displays (for engineering and development), the Group has the world leading market position and a strong international reputation for precision instruments.

Founded in 1984, the Group’s headquarters are in Oxford, UK, and has offices in California and Colorado, USA. It has customers in over 50 countries and is a quoted company listed on AIM, a market operated by the London Stock Exchange. The Group trades through three operating subsidiaries – Vicon, the world’s biggest motion capture and movement analysis company, 2d3, a manufacturer of specialised image understanding software for entertainment and defence applications and Geospatial Vision, our 3D mapping business.

Oxford Metrics’ global clients in science, medicine, sport, engineering, gaming, film and broadcast include major hospitals and research facilities such as Guy's Hospital, Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre and Loughborough University, engineering industry leaders including Ford Motor Company, BMW, Airbus, Caterpillar, and Toyota, and in the entertainment sector, Sony, Industrial Light and Magic, The Moving Picture Company (MPC), Sega, Nintendo, UbiSoft, EA, Square Enix and many others.

For more information about OMG and its subsidiaries, visit www.omg3d.com, www.vicon.com, or www.yotta.tv.

Press contact:
Hayley Roberts / Sean Fleming
Clarity Public Relations
Tel: 0870 950 9670
Email: press@claritypr.co.uk