INNOVATIVE ANIMATION CREATED BY USING A GAME ENGINE

New Canadian live-action/animated kids TV series, Zixx Level One, is the first show for broadcast to contain animation created by a game engine. The Lithtech Engine was provided to the makers of the show as the platform for the eye popping animation.

(PRWEB) December 10, 2003 --Zixx Level One is an exciting new kids sci-fi television series that debuts on YTV at 1:30 & 6pm on January 17, 2004. This live-action/animated series is a contemporary take on good versus evil complete with eye-popping video game visuals.

ZIXX PHUNKEE ZEE (played by stunning newcomer, Barbara Mamabolo) is an intergalactic agent who crash lands on earth with her partner, the lizard like FLANNGO (played by the shows creator Jeffrey Hirschfield). They have no back-up, few weapons and no way to contact the network back home - which is all well and good until they discover that earth is a hot-bed of activity for the forces of evil. Earth, it seems, has a multitude of portals that lead into the KEEP (an old, long abandoned fortress of the highly intelligent race called the GAANTH). In the Keep are testing chambers and weapons that Zixx needs to help her win the race to capture the SWORD OF GAANTH which, if it falls in the wrong hands (those of a really mean alien called DEETH (Earl Pastko)) will enable the evil ONCALON to return to power. Along the way, Zixx reluctantly recruits two earth boys ADAM (Jamie Johnson) and GRIFF (Alex Hood) who initially get in the way more than they help but they eventually prove themselves to be worthy teammates.

In addition to the talented newcomer actors, the star of Zixx Level One is definitely the animation. When the shows heroes pass through a portal into the Keep they find themselves in a trans-dimensional world which turns ordinary humans and aliens into powerful warriors complete with power suits.

The rules of the Keep are akin to video games: there are testing chambers, weapons to collect and monsters lying in wait for them at every turn. In order to move to the next level, the heroes must solve the riddles in each of the three neuropods, collect certain weapons and overcome the guardian of the door to level two.

When we realized that we needed video game visuals in the Keep, we decided to try something that has never been done for broadcast before, we decided to use a game engine to create the animated Keep" says Executive Producer Alexandra Raffé.

Using a game engine called the Lithtech Engine from Monolith Productions, 3DS Max and a program created in house at Elliot Digital called the 'Choreographer the technical team was able to interconnect the three programs allowing Max to create the props, sets and characters then export them directly into the game engine to convert them to short film segments.

Once the "game" was built, each of the Keep scenes and sequences was "played" - with the difference being that all the data could be recorded, baking it in, so that the action could be played back at will. Having done that, the game engine's real-time rendering was output to tape, then edited into the show. The final element was the creation of some traditional visual effects into the live action sections of the show.

The result is a unique style of animation that looks exactly like a video game. The sequences in the Keep were shot" using a lot of HUD or Heads Up Display" so that a viewer who plays computer games will instantly recognize the environment as a game environment.

We are thrilled with the final product," says Executive Producer Debbie Nightingale, the show is even better than we anticipated."

Even though this kind of animation has never been done before, YTV were with us every step of the way" says Alexandra Raffé, we are very lucky that we are able to do this show with such a brave and visionary company".
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