Pipeline toolkit unveiled at SIGGRAPH 2013 provides users with out-of-the-box integrations with Photoshop, Maya, Nuke and Houdini, and a flexible customization framework.
Anaheim, CA-- Shotgun Software has released the Shotgun Pipeline Toolkit (previously code-named "Tank") at SIGGRAPH 2013, providing studios with a set of out-of-the-box pipeline tools tailor-made for visual effects, animation and game development workflows. Fully integrated into the Shotgun production tracking platform, the Pipeline Toolkit allows studios to rapidly connect their artist applications to the important production information and files that artists need to do their work. It is available now to all clients at no extra charge.
Shotgun's Pipeline Toolkit will be demonstrated in Shotgun's booth (#737) during the Siggraph conference at the Anaheim, Calif. Convention Center, July 23 to 25. The Shotgun Pipeline User Group meeting at Siggraph will offer an in-depth technical presentation on Wednesday July 24th from 2-3:30 in room 213a.
"Psyop was involved early on with the development of the Shotgun Pipeline Toolkit," said Jean-Francois Panisset, CTO of Psyop. "The collaborative development model allowed us to influence the direction of the product, contribute functionality important to us, and benefit from the involvement of other studios. The Shotgun Pipeline Toolkit is allowing us to develop a powerful, flexible, multi-platform pipeline infrastructure much faster and in a much more cost effective way than if we had tried to do it all by ourselves."
The Toolkit supports Adobe Photoshop, Autodesk Maya, 3ds Max, Softimage and MotionBuilder, The Foundry's Nuke and Hiero, and Side Effects Software's Houdini, with more supported applications on the way.
Shotgun Pipeline Toolkit Key Features:
- File Management: Keep your file system organized with tools that automaticallycreate folders on disk and name and organize files from within an artist'sapplication. This is completely configurable to your studio's conventionsand can be modified across active projects.
- Launchers, Loaders & Publishers: Included tools for launching artist applications from the Shotguninterface, browsing and loading in files with smart UIs inside artistapplications, and one-click saving files to share with others.
- Apps: All thetools that come with Pipeline Toolkit are developed as Apps, which aresmall independent pieces of functionality that can be mixed and matched.
- Pipeline Management: Like source control for your pipeline, the Toolkit allows you tofork and configure different file system configurations and sets of appsthat are running at the same time across multiple projects.
- Dev Tools: Built-in Gitand Github support make it easy to modify or create apps and deploy safelyto various environments, while development tools make it fast to build andhot-load your code when iterating on an app.
- Modular and Portable: A consistent interface based on Python and PySide lets studioswrite a single App that works across multiple artist tools like Photoshop,Maya and Nuke.
- Python API: Access allthe production and file based data with a single Python API.
- Modify Source: The Toolkit python source code is available on Github for clients,allowing them to modify source or collaborate with the Shotgun team andother studios.
"Modern studios have to be smart and efficient, and it simply doesn't make business sense for so many of them to reinvent the same tools over and over," said Don Parker, CEO and co-founder of Shotgun Software. "We've invested heavily in the development of the Toolkit because we know how much value these tools can bring to the entire VFX community. Our clients are telling us they are ready to collaborate with us and each other on pipeline tools, so we are proud to bring the Toolkit to them and provide a forum for that collaboration."
Shotgun has been developing the Pipeline Toolkit for more than four years and has been in private beta with hundreds of studios. The Toolkit is available immediately to all customers as part of their Shotgun subscription for the same low price of $49/user/month.
A key goal of Pipeline Toolkit is to empower co-development within the community. The hope is that pipeline developers will use the framework to build tools that other studios can pick up and evolve. By encouraging community participation, Shotgun has already received contributions from studios such as Psyop, Rodeo, Blur, and Cluster for applications like Hiero, Houdini, and Softimage.
Customer Testimonials
"Shotgun's Toolkit allowed us to quickly and easily evolve our pipeline with tools that are helping our artists work faster. And by participating in the private beta, we had the chance to meet and collaborate with other studios on some key functionality that is now back in the Toolkit core product. We are very pleased with the Toolkit and the community forming around it," said Jordan Soles, CTO, Rodeo FX.
"The Shotgun Pipeline Toolkit allows us to build on top of a clear architecture which leverages configuration, separation of concerns, plugins, code reuse and a consistent development experience across third party apps like Nuke, Maya, 3dsMax, Photoshop etc. We can deploy apps globally or go as granular as a single user which brings speed and administrative ease, while also allowing for innovation and short lived hacks. This product, being a 'toolkit' as opposed to 'a monolithic application' allows us to pick the building blocks which complement our existing infrastructure and transition gradually. And last but not least it offers the promise and possibility to collaborate on pipelines across studios," said Patrick Wolf, Head of Pipeline, Pixomondo.
"We're all loving the Toolkit at Prologue. Thank you for the brilliant software," said Mike Fisher, Technical Director, Prologue.
"We've been plowing through Toolkit for our pipeline and it's been great. We've been tweaking some of the apps and developed some of our own which has given our Nuke and Maya artists a real solid platform on which to work," said Tim Chauncey, Lead Technical Director, Windmill Lane VFX.
"Having an Asset Management system that's so flexible is crucial for a rapid pace studio like us, you can adopt it gradually one project at a time while your pipeline evolves," said Armando "Doc" Ricalde, Co-Founder and CTO, Cluster Studio.
Source: Shotgun Software
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.
