Latin American animation and gaming company, which recently closed $1.3 million Series A round, taps Los Angeles-based industry veteran to head STORYZ, its award-winning 3D studio.

ZIO Studios announced the key hire as part of its current expansion phase in which it will be developing next-generation 3D social and mobile games, as well as its own animation titles for film and television.

Iohann Sanmartin has 15 years of experience in the entertainment business and is an expert in innovative production strategies for animation and new media properties. He has a solid track record in working hands-on with “pixels and people,” designing and producing projects for blue-chip clients such as the Walt Disney Company, Universal Studios and Lucas Arts.

New Product Demos, Customer Presentations, Free Autodesk Smoke Training and More — Live in the Autodesk Booth and Online on AREA Community Site.

Autodesk, Inc. will participate in the NAB Show, the premier digital media industry event in Las Vegas, April 11–14, 2011. Autodesk will showcase its recently launched 2012 Digital Entertainment Creation software for animation, visual effects, editorial finishing and color grading for commercial, film and broadcast postproduction. Digital artists will be able to connect with Autodesk at NAB booth SL2120, as well as virtually on AREA — the Autodesk digital entertainment and visualization community with a quarter of a million unique visitors monthly. Customer and product demonstrations and exclusive video coverage will be streamed live from the Autodesk booth or available on demand on AREA.

Autodesk Workflows and Product Showcase

At booth SL2120, Autodesk will show how its comprehensive, connected Digital Entertainment Creation toolsets can maximize creative capability and value in an efficient, modern pipeline which enables digital artists to produce higher-quality graphics, commercials and promos as they exchange 3D data from previs to post. Presentations will feature new 3D relighting tools for next-generation look development, a holistic stereoscopic 3D pipeline that includes real-time stereo grading, 3D re-dimensionalization and 3D visual effects, streamlined workflows for computer graphic–intensive finishing and the productivity benefits of all-in-one editorial finishing on the Mac.

The following Autodesk 2012 Digital Entertainment Creation products will be featured at the booth:

Autodesk Flame Premium 2012 — Autodesk’s ultimate finishing solution for real-time color grading and 3D visual effects
Autodesk Flare — a powerful 3D node-based compositing assistant to Autodesk Flame and Flame Premium
Autodesk Smoke 2012 — an all-in-one editorial finishing tool for the Mac
Autodesk Maya Entertainment Creation Suite 2012 and Autodesk 3ds Max Entertainment Creation Suite 2012 — software for creating sophisticated motion graphics, computer animation and visual effects

Autodesk Customer Showcase

Vico Sharabani, independent VFX Supervisor and Flame artist, will present his latest work for Psyop using Flame.
Taylor Vavra of Just Add Water, a New York postproduction editorial boutique, will present recent work created with Smoke.
David Crites from Glyph Corp will demonstrate how he uses Smoke for Mac and Autodesk Maya to create multi-screen and unique format projects.

Language Demonstrations

Autodesk will present demonstrations at Autodesk booth SL2120 on Tuesday, April 12, from 4:00–5:00 p.m. PST in Japanese and from 5:00-6:00 p.m. PST in Spanish.

Autodesk Smoke for Mac OS X: Free Hands-on Training at NAB 2011

With support from AJA Video Systems and Intel, Autodesk will provide free 60-minute Smoke for Mac training sessions in a supervised environment. These introductory sessions are ideal for digital artists and editors who want to learn more about Smoke and will be held at the Post Production World, Las Vegas Convention Center, North Hall, Room N243. Preregister here: (http://smokemacnab2011.autodeskevents.net). Daily Schedule: Monday, April 11, and Tuesday, April 12. View registration link above for details.

Tenth Anniversary Las Vegas SuperMeet

On Tuesday, April 12, at the Bally’s Hotel Event Center, Autodesk will present a Smoke mainstage demo entitled, “Taking Your Finishing Workflow Into the Third Dimension,” as part of the Final Cut Pro Users Group SuperMeet, the largest gathering of Final Cut Pro, Adobe and Avid editors, HDSLR filmmakers and digital content creators. Doors open at 4:30 p.m. for the Digital Showcase; the show runs from 7:00–11:00 p.m. Preregister here: (http://www.lafcpug.org/events/supermeet_lv_2011.html).