The team set up just in time for the first race of the inaugural 10-team Louis Vuitton Pacific Series, beginning today.
Animation chief executive Ian Taylor said it would be the first time "nearly all" daily six hours' coverage of the yachting series, on the Internet and Freeview, would be done using Virtual Eye animation, as opposed to inter-spliced alongside live all-day footage.
"We'll be broadcasting a virtual, tack by tack and gybe by gybe coverage of every race," Mr Taylor said yesterday.
"The Dunedin studio's bare; it was dismantled only six days ago and is all in the Team New Zealand office being set up," Mr Taylor said.
He was disappointed to learn late last year that that there was only a 30-minute highlights package of television coverage being arranged, and set about getting funding to have Animation provide the Virtual Eye coverage, a feature of past coverage of the America's Cup regattas, golf, cricket and motor racing for the past 15 years.
"The cost of setting up to shoot the series live for television was prohibitive in the current economic climate," he said.
Funding for the Animation coverage includes New Zealand on Air, Tourism Auckland, the Auckland City Council and Auckland Plus, and also data provided at no cost by Terralink International.
"This two weeks will be almost as big for us as [coverage of the America's Cup] in Valencia," Mr Taylor said.
He said tiny transmitters on the yachts would provide the data for software to generate images to be seen on the Internet and TV.
