In this interview we were asking questions cebas CEO Edwin Braun, the leader in VFX solutions for CG industry. cebas offers a wide range of products for production solutions for VFX studios, and visualization design companies, as well as 3D laser scanning services. Moreover their software solutions are unique and frequently developed in conjunction with major motion pictures aiming to dazzle their audiences with the latest in special effects. So if you were wondering what was behind the VFX in movies like "Harry Potter" series, "Alice and Wonderland" and “Sucker Punch”, you can be sure that a part was cebas technology. We would like to thank MR. Braun for answering our questions and on the bottom of this article you can see a gallery of artworks made with cebas technology.
Q: What was behind the formation of Cebas and who?
A: Achim Smailus and Edwin Braun are the founders of cebas Visual Technology Inc. The company was initially incorporated to develop Software as well as Hardware; yet with its gradual growth, began its gradual focus on Software development for the 3D market. cebas is currently considered one of the leaders in this extremely specialized and sophisticated industry.
Q: Can you closer describe your company to our readers? (How many employees do you have, how look your ordinary day, how many people are developing your plugins, how long you are on the market, etc.)
A: cebas was Incorporated in 1988 in Heidelberg, Germany and then moved its headquarter to Victoria British Columbia in 2009.
cebas Visual Technology Inc. is a privately held software company headquartered in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. It employs developers and other personnel in Australia, Germany, Russia and Canada.
The company offers a broad range of production solutions for VFX studios, and visualization design companies, as well as 3D laser scanning services.
cebas technologies are unique and market leading. They are frequently developed in conjunction with major motion pictures aiming to dazzle their audiences with the latest in special effects.
cebas software is used in award winning movie productions, games and architectural design. It allows users to achieve realistic, innovative and compelling visual effects that are scientifically accurate and engineered entirely based on physics.
cebas software drives critical VFX scenes in major pictures like “Snow white and the Huntsman”, “Final Destination 5”, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I and II”, “Transformers 3D”,“Green Lantern”, “Thor 3D”, “2012”, “Alice in Wonder Land”, “The Last Air Bender”, “GI Joe”, “Percy Jackson and the Olympians”, “Nightmare on Elm Street”, “Jonah Hex” and “Iron Man 2”.
cebas tools are also used to convert movies to 3D Stereo. The technology was pioneered in the latest "Narnia" picture and is being further developed under an agreement with the Hollywood special effects studio Pixel Magic, which is using it to convert "Harry Potter" into 3D Stereo.
cebas partners mainly with Autodesk and rides on the company’s industry standard 3D software 3ds Max and Maya. Autodesk has been incorporating cebas technologies into their offerings for many years. Also, cebas was the first in the business to introduce training videos with its software, well before e-learning became wide-spread.
Q: You have a wide range of products. Are any of them using any unique technologies?
A: Many of our products offer unique features and have been a ‘first mover’ several times in their field. thinkingParticlesTM, for example, is our advanced Rule-Based particle effects tool that offers many one-of-a-kind functions and features.
Q: Which one you see as your flagship?
A: finalRenderTM3.5 SE and thinkingParticlesTM