Venerable VFX Facility Replaces In-House Software "Flipper" with RV to Streamline Dailies, Real-time Color Correction and Playback in Stereo 3D

San Francisco, CA (March 20, 2009)-Tweak Software, developers of RV, the image and sequence viewer for animation and visual effects, announced today that Tippett Studio is integrating RV company-wide as its playback tool of choice. RV will replace Flipper, the proprietary playback software developed at Tippett Studio, as the backbone of its VFX digital pipeline.

Tippett Studio was founded 25 years ago and has earned a reputation for groundbreaking animation and visual effects. The studio has launched a major initiative to retool its pipeline to accommodate increasingly complex artistic and technical demands-without disrupting existing workflows.

"RV is an industrial strength image playback tool, and the only solution out there robust and customizable enough to replace Flipper," said Sanjay Das, Chief Technology Officer at Tippett. "Supporting a proprietary homegrown playback solution is expensive and not the best use of R&D resources, but before RV there was no good alternative."

According to Scott Liedtka, VFX Supervisor at Tippett, "Above all, RV is a tool for artists. It is clean and elegant and adaptable to however you want to work."

Tippett Studio turned to RV as part of an effort to build the facility's capacity to handle upwards of 2000 shots per feature. Other features that attracted Tippett to RV include:

• Customization - RV is a very open platform, not a black box application. It can be modified to integrate tightly with the rest of a pipeline or to support proprietary workflows.
• Color Correction-RV does real-time color correction using the graphics card, and RV's color management is scriptable so a facility can automate and customize the way images are presented based on scripted rules.
• 3D Stereo-RV has advanced 3D stereo support built in. RV's stereo is resolution independent, like the rest of RV, so the left/right eyes can be different resolutions or image formats, and you can zoom, pan, adjust offset, flip/flop, and swap eyes.

Tippett Studio is currently using RV on "Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore" and will have RV integrated into the entire facility within three-to-six months. The facility is currently ramping up for VFX production on the sequel to "Twilight" entitled "New Moon".

About RV

RV is a real-time, film resolution, high-dynamic-range image and sequence viewer for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. The application also includes native support for stereo 3D. RV combines a flexible architecture and a hardware accelerated compositing pipeline with a lean, polished design tailored to professional digital artists. Free downloadable trial versions of the software are available upon request at http://www.tweaksoftware.com.

About Tweak Software

San Francisco, CA-based Tweak Software was co-founded by Jim Hourihan and Seth Rosenthal in 2007. Co-founder and director of R&D Jim Hourihan is the recipient of two Sci-Tech Academy Awards and is best known for developing Dynamation, the first commercial particle system that was subsequently incorporated into Autodesk's Maya software. Under the guidance of this talented team, Tweak Software is uniquely positioned to develop tools that address real-world production needs of VFX and animation professionals. For more information, visit http://www.tweaksoftware.com.

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