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Autodesk Releases RV Open Source Version

Now available on the Academy Software Foundation GitHub, Open RV, the open source version of the tech giant’s Sci-Tech award-winning media review and playback software, will benefit from continued vendor development as well as community-driven updates.

Autodesk has just released Open RV on GitHub, an open source version of its Sci-Tech award-winning media review and playback software. The code will be hosted at the Academy Software Foundation (ASWF) as part of Open Review Initiative, which is working to build a unified open source toolset for playback, review and approval of motion picture and related professional media. As part of the open source community, RV will continue to benefit from both community-driven updates as well as development efforts by Autodesk engineers.

Autodesk will continue to manage and develop RV for its commercial customers, and it will be an active contributor to Open RV and the Open Review Initiative to support a standardized toolset for native review. This move underscores Autodesk’s belief that open standards and interoperability are essential to the viability and growth of the visual effects, computer graphics and animation industry.

“In releasing Open RV, we’re bringing the code base from a commercially available product to GitHub, and we hope to do more of this in the future,” said Diana Colella, SVP Media and Entertainment, Autodesk. “We’re excited to open source RV to help creative teams get projects reviewed and approved with greater ease, and ultimately reach final pixel faster and more cost effectively.”

RV is an industry-leading, native review and playback tool used globally by VFX, animation and content creation teams.  First announced last August, the new open source version of RV allows users and studios to review any media with largely the same features as the commercial version, and customize, modify, and implement new core functionalities tailored to project demands or workflow needs.

 “Autodesk’s generous contribution of Open RV to the ASWF is one of the foundational pillars of the Open Review Initiative, and marks the beginning of a community-led effort to develop an interoperable platform and application suite for media review and approval in the entertainment industry,” said Erik Strauss, Technical Steering Committee Chair for the Open Review Initiative at Academy Software Foundation. “RV’s long standing position as the de facto reference application for media review, and the vibrant community surrounding it, make Open RV the perfect jumping off point for our initiative’s effort to provide a best in class review and approval ecosystem for developers, studios and artists collaborating on content creation.” 

Open RV will be managed by a technical steering committee (TSC) chaired by Autodesk, consisting of engineers and contributors from the community. The project will operate under the oversight of the Open Review Initiative alongside DNEG’s xStudio and Sony Pictures Imageworks’ itview. Software engineers and developers interested in contributing to the project and the community can join the ASWF Open Review Initiative Slack channel and the Open Review Initiative mailing list.

Autodesk is a founding member of ASWF, developed by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences (AMPAS) and the Linux Foundation in 2018. The ASWF is the motion picture industry’s premier organization for advancing open source software development across image creation, visual effects, animation, and sound technologies.

Autodesk RV source code, Open RV, is now available to developers and the open source community via the ASWF GitHub. Autodesk will actively participate and monitor community-driven developments in Open RV, with the intention to integrate new functionality into the commercial version of RV, which is still available to customers with ShotGrid subscriptions or perpetual RV licenses with active maintenance plans.

For more information, visit: the Open RV FAQ and the Open Review Initiative homepage.

Source: Autodesk

Dan Sarto's picture

Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.