Animation workflow, pipeline, asset management & production control.

(Copied from their website): "Sequoya Workflow is the most comprehensive application of its kind, supporting computer graphics production for visual effects, animation, interactive, and scientific visualization studios. Built to maximize control and efficiency, Sequoya Workflow is essential for anyone wanting to integrate workflow automation with production tracking and asset management. Sequoya Workflow tracks all project components, including resources, deliverables, and the tasks required to complete them. In addition, Sequoya Workflow provides an automated pipeline capable of producing any number of renders, composites, and slated movie files from a single command." http://www.sequoyaworkflow.com/

Jeff Goldner posted an  (Copied from his website):  " overall view of the whole animation process. Every production is different, but this describes a typical commercial production's workflow: - Pre production - Production - Post production - Distribution" Most readers of this blog won´t need this introduction, I hope! http://animationpost.co.uk/tech-notes/overview1.htm

Hardly a recent release (the plugin dates back to 2008) mayadailies is a  (Copied from their website): " Wordpress based Dailies system for Maya. The script facilitates creating playblasts, uploading the playblast to an ftp server under the current day's folder, and creating a blog entry. Then, every user has access to view the blog entry and the attached thumbnail images from within Maya. All comments posted on the blog for the entry will automatically appear inside of the mayadailies interface within Maya, so that all artists will be sure to get the notes for their last dailies. " http://code.google.com/p/mayadailies/

VFX Nexus is  (Copied from their website): "A hosted web application for visual effects studios of all sizes to collaborate and track their entire workflow: - Accessible anywhere - Unlimited projects, shots, tasks - Granular user permissions - Share files worldwide new! - Customizable to your workflow - Secure, fast and quick setup - Monthly subscription pricing VFX Nexus has been central to the success of more than 20 feature films as well as numerous television and commercial productions." http://vfxnexus.com

I saw this announcement and thought that maybe someone will be able to attend to this talk by  Rob van den Bragt: " Out of the Box – A closer look at Animation Studio Pipelines " and tell us how it went? The subject seems quite interesting, for sure  (Copied from their website): "This talk takes a closer look at the various animation studio pipelines being used around the world. What works, what doesn’t and why is it important to have a broader and more in-depth understanding of the celebrated, yet dreaded “pipeline”. Is a pipeline a hindrance or a blessing? Should you as an artist or studio owner invest time to expand your pipeline, or not? Asset Management, Sequential and Parallel Workflows, Publishing, Databasing, Information Management, Sequence Stamping, Departmental Workflows, Data Structuring and Version Control are just some of the concepts being looked at a little bit closer as we consider the pros and cons of taking it one step further." http://www.k...

Vortex is  (Copied from their website): "A pipeline platform designed primarily for the digital film and animation industry. Vortex is a platform tool designed to consolidate the features of a complex animation/vfx pipeline into a single unified interface. The focus of the tool is on portability, scalability, and maintaining a small infrastructure footprint within a heterogeneous environment. The tool is broadly scoped and aimed at multiple scales of production, from individual to large size studios. Managing work and data flow within a complex system is a daunting task for users at many levels, and this tool aims to simplify both the daily and overall interactions for users (from crew to management). Implementation of a pipeline with the tool is two-fold. Vortex provides a few built in systems (custom file views, versioning, role management, task management, cross platform interoperability, queue management, scalable database backend, 3rd party software access, API), but ot...

Talk Management System is  (Copied from their website): "A web based software, created to ease the process of feature film and television producing, from the script break down to file distribution. Talk Production Management is a reliable, cost-effective online solution for managing film, visual effects, and television productions. It’s a bridge between Creativity and Management to track your money, not only your assets. The developers are a group of film and VFX industry professionals who got tired of rebuilding our production pipelines from scratch with every new project. Consisting of a team with such diverse backgrounds as visual effects, film production, audio, web design and visual effects software development. They’re united by a shared conviction that well-designed management software can have a huge positive impact on media & entertainment productions. The Talk Management System was founded in 2005." http://www.talkmgt.com

Invisually is  (Copied from their website): "Designed to be used flexibly by the entire VFX production team, by Producers, Editorial, and Facilities. The principle goal of Invisually is ease of use. Our application-like interface gives access to crucial data quickly and gives artists and management immediate results in managing the pipeline.  The approach is simple. You can start the show with Invisually at the breakdown stage, or import any spreadsheet or database file for instant integration. Add thumbnail images and Quicktime movies, and you are up and running.  Invisually tracks all shots and assets in the show. Individual records hold all notes, scanning info, past and present versions, and comments from all departments. Integrated email based tools automatically distribute client, vendor, and production notes." http://www.invisually.com/

FTrack is  (Copied from their website): "A Project, Workflow and Asset Management System for creative companies such as VFX, Animation, Post Production and Game Development studios. FTrack will give you access to: - Scheduling with dependencies and resource booking - Workflows - Real-time reporting with cost & progress - Communication - Digital assets - All across multiple projects or productions. FTrack has been developed by people who have spent many years as artists, supervisors, developers and producers, and who believe that being on top of your projects should be easy and straight forward. Therefore FTrack is extremely scalable and suits studios from 10 to 1000 artists. It is also highly customisable: everything is configurable, from page layout and data representation to the creation of custom entities." http://www.ftrack.com/

ResourceSpace is  (Copied from their website): "A web-based, open source digital asset management system which has been designed to give your content creators easy and fast access to print and web ready assets. The application was originally developed for Oxfam GB, and is in daily use by their internal resources team to manage and distribute over 60,000 photo, text and video resources. In the summer of 2006, Oxfam released the product under a BSD-style license and since then significant further development has been funded by a variety of organisations around the world. Some of its features: - Completely web based - Easily share your resources with suppliers and the public. - Automatic previews and conversion - Supporting metadata standards" http://www.resourcespace.org/

I just found that the guys behind OpenPipeline are working on a new software called  SteamPipe  (Copied from their website): "An asset management framework with a centralized server, and a web interface. The framework allows organizations to easily define workflows and build in automation to standardize and minimize investment, and  asset types are declared as plug-ins, so customizing, extending, and creating new assets or building on existing assets is possible. SteamPipe will be available as a custom installation during Beta, contact them for more information." http://kickstand.tv/tools/steampipe/

OpenPipeline has a new website:  http://openpipeline.cc/ In CGW´s Volume: 32 Issue: 8 (Aug. 2009) you can see an article "Building the Perfect Production Pipeline", showing that  OpenPipeline   (Copied from their website) is : "An underground, open-source project" (...) "began as an experiment to produce an easy-to-use production pipeline. It has since evolved into a serious tool for managing the production pipeline and teaching production asset management in the classroom"