With a move to 35 McCaul Street, Toronto’s TOPIX Computer Graphics and Animation and Mad Dog Digital have melded into one unit which will form the basis of a more comprehensive multilayered media operation whose planned undertakings include the development of a new animated series.

The new TOPIX/Mad Dog space, occupying three floors in the dual Ontario Crafts Council building (with signs still pointing visitors to weavers and spinners and, most laughably, Chaplaincy Services at the main entrance) doubles the capacity of TOPIX/MD’s previous location and houses the combined resources of the two companies, which offer design, 2D and 3D animation, graphics and special effects and compositing with Flint and Flame as well as a newly added Inferno suite.

The impetus for the amalgamation was to clarify the company’s position in its existing market, lessening confusion among commercial clients and maximizing availability of the wide range of gear and talent applied to each project as appropriate.

Company founder Chris Wallace says the new space also spells a move toward diversification, with the gathering of current and planned resources supporting a wider sphere of activity for the shop. The TOPIX/MD offices include TOPIX development spin-off Red Giant Productions, run by Wallace and Stephen Price; Steve Angel and Julian Grey’s Head Gear Animation; as well as Torch TV, production partner to Red Giant on the company’s animation magazine show Splat!.

Wallace says Splat!, now in its second season on teletoon and Discovery International, will serve as a launching pad for a new character ultimately destined for his own show to be produced out of Red Giant.

The as-yet-unnamed character, an alien sent from another civilization to observe earth by way of its tv shows (sample tone: he can’t understand how earth continued to function after the cancellation of The Three Stooges and thinks cnn anchors are comedians) will show up on season three Splat! interstitials, which will act as a pilot for the show.

The character will also appear on a new Website created out of TOPIX/MD for which the company is attempting to access the recently created Bell Fund for multimedia projects.

Wallace says the site will extend and complement the content of Splat! as well as provide an animation-centric resource, with links to other sites and shows and an area to which people can send their own animated creations over the Net.

The company is also in preproduction on a proposed 70mm animated ride film for Toronto-based Simex. The project originated from an preshow TOPIX did for a Simex ride, which uses aliens to welcome patrons into theaters, where they become trapped victims of the now belligerent creatures.

The sequel project, which will be developed over about six months at TOPIX/MD by Fay Grambart, Patrick Coffey, Richard Rosenman and Janis Mussat, uses cel-drawn, humorously gruesome green aliens rendered together with a 3D world and is planned as a four-minute ride for some Symmex venues.

Wallace says the large-format project doesn’t represent a specific new direction; the company has traditionally worked on a range of untypical jobs. But he acknowledges the explosion in imax construction and says a project from the big-screen company would be welcome.

The new company configuration is a change of identity and of the mix of things the company does, says Wallace. The mix will also soon include Trinity Square Video on the building’s fourth floor, an editing cooperative which will bring in a young and experimental creative element providing potentially a next generation talent pool for the company. The Ontario College of Art may also rent space in the building, further deepening the pool.

Wallace says while there was discussion of jettisoning the Mad Dog name and streamlining under the TOPIX banner, name equity and emotional attachment led to the dual moniker and the new logo, which features a dynamic combination of the existing TOPIX monitor and the monitor-headed mad dog flying toward each other.

Partner Sylvain Taillon says the fortified TOPIX/MD is looking toward increasing its commercial special effects activity.