Digikore to target international market in six months

Nanda Kasabe


Pune

It began as an industrial design consultancy providing services in the areas of production design, product styling and graphics. Some plum assignments came its way--Onida, Videocon, Philips, Kores and Symphony to name a few. Over the years, the company saw a tremendous opportunity in the area of multimedia and CD-ROM development.

For young Abhishek More, animation is a different cup of tea altogether. And the journey has been a long one--from manufacture of industrial paints, franchising Coke and building effluent treatment plants to the world of multimedia.

The last famous assignment of the Pune-based Digikore Studios Pvt Ltd was to popularize Indian cooking through the CD-ROM medium. Hosted by celebrity Sanjeev Kapoor of Khana Khazana fame, this CD-ROM was a total sellout garnering a viewership of 250 million in 23 countries. Then there was the CD-ROM for Zee Education on ZED Career Academy. And now More and his team are busy lending final touches to Kardy Tales, yet another CD-ROM from the Digikore stable, which is expected to hit the market soon.

Digikore is part of the Rs 130 crore Growel group with diversified experience of manufacturing, marketing and trading operations.

More agrees that the US animation software is still number one in the world. Yet he is confident that the Indian animation market holds a lot of promise. "We take pride in the facilities offered here and believe that we could do some real world class work."

Digikore is equipped to handle 2D and 3D animations right from script to screen, he explained. More maintained that while they would concentrate on the domestic market initially for building their portfolio, he believed that it was a matter of six months or so before they would tap the international market for work. The company is already working towards this end.

Digikore has partnered with Toon Boom Technologies to set up USAnimation, the leading vector-based digital ink and paint compositing software for cartoon animation. The infrastructure has been designed to facilitate two or three more shifts in ink and paint and compositing. "With 10 seats of USAnimation in our studio, we have one of the largest installations of USAnimation in India," asserted More.

For 3D animation, the studios use software such as Maya, 3D Studio MAX and Character Studio for creating stunningly realistic images, scenes and special effects. Digikore can provide world class 2D and 3D animation for film and television, simulation, architecture, education, advertising, websites, CD ROMs, DVDs and computer games.

More picked up some 30 young art graduates this year molding them into designer material. With work on Kardy Tales--the famous book for children--currently going in full swing, there are two other interesting assignments on the cards--Birth of Krishna and Birth of Jesus. More believed that a headcount of 500 would be healthy enough to tap the international market. "We will be touching these figures by December 2001." Around Rs 1 crore has been invested in this greenfield project which is expected to break even in a years time.

(CNS)