《TAIPEI TIMES》 Seven teams win animation contest

By Lin Chia-nan / Staff reporter

The seven winning teams of the sixth Three-Dimensional Animation Challenge yesterday received their awards from Minister of Science and Technology Chen Liang-gee （陳良基） and Minister of Culture Cheng Li-chiun （鄭麗君） at a ceremony in New Taipei City.

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The 60 teams that made it into the finals were invited to the ceremony at Acer Inc’s headquarters in the Eastern Science Park in Sijhih District （汐止）.

“As technology itself cannot create value ... real innovation should be that which is able to touch people’s hearts. To achieve that, we need cultural content,” Chen said in an opening speech at the ceremony.

“To expand the economic value of innovative projects, we need the help of the Ministry of Economic Affairs,” he said, inviting Minister of Economic Affairs Lee Chih-kung （李世光）, who was in attendance, to join the alliance of technology and culture.

The contest was divided into animation and special effect groups, and winners received yellow plastic brick trophies that resemble the Oscar statuette.

Wang Chia-min （王嘉敏）, Lee Ping-ting （李娉婷） and three other members Ming Chuan University team won the animation group championship for their film, Solar, earning a prize of NT$300,000.

The film’s script drew on elements from Norse mythology and US blockbusters, and its protagonists are a zombie and an elf.

Lee said he hopes the film will encourage viewers to ask themselves: “How far will you go to realize your dreams?”

Wang said the team got little sleep during the project, working in 12-hour shifts in their dormitories.

Thanks to the help from the National Center for High-performance Computing at the National Applied Research Laboratories （NARL）, the team was able to reduce its computer processing time per frame from 2 minutes to 5 seconds, Wang said.

NARL set up the first “Render Farm” （算圖農場） in Taiwan in 2011, which has helped many Taiwanese film producers to achieve better three-dimensional effects, center researcher Kuo Chia-chen （郭嘉真） said.

The center had also assisted in the computing work of director Hou Hsiao-hsien’s （侯孝賢） The Assassin （刺客聶隱娘） and television director Tsao Jui-yuan’s （曹瑞原） A Touch of Green （一把青）, Kuo said.

Solar can be watched online at: https://goo.gl/qsduZo.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES