Geomerics receives funding from TSB to use Enlighten in film

The funding is part of the TSB's ‘Cross Platform Production in Digital Media’ competition announced last year. The TSB’s goal is to accelerate UK economic growth by stimulating and supporting business-led innovation. The digital economy is a strategic focus, and it views the game and film industries as crucial players.

Geomerics’ entry created interest because of its potential to make the film, television and on-line video services industry more efficient. One of the most time-consuming parts of the editing process where computer-generated effects are used is in rendering, particularly lighting. At present, filmmakers edit sequences offline and then render them to bring them up to full quality, which can take 8-24 hours. By contrast, the gaming world has had to develop real-time rendering techniques so complex full-quality graphics sequences can be instantly produced on consoles and mobile phones.

“Real-time computer graphics technology can now meet the quality demands of both film and television,” said Dr Chris Doran, Director, Geomerics. “Providing our lighting technology to big screen filmmakers enables them to deliver movies with compelling visual experiences faster and for less money with the quality that moviegoers expect. This will be a dramatic shift in the industry’s production practices.”