Coming later this year, the app is aimed at establishing an industry-standard toolset for collaborative review; designed to integrate into individual pipelines, teams can review shots, edits, and grades in a single, unified application on all desktop platforms and operating systems.
Leading VFX and animation studio DNEG announced the upcoming launch of xSTUDIO, a flexible and feature-rich playback and review application. Now in development, the app will replace other image review tools across DNEG’s content creation pipeline, allowing individuals and teams to review shots, edits, and grades in a single, unified application on all desktop platforms and operating systems (Linux, Mac, and Windows).
xSTUDIO will be published as an open source project, allowing industry partners and filmmaking teams to integrate the application into their own pipeline, to encourage the adoption of the tool as a new industry-standard toolset for collaborative review. Available for free download, the beta application is slated to launch later this year.
“From its conception, xSTUDIO was designed to allow everyone working in the media creation industries to collaborate seamlessly,” commented DNEG senior VFX supervisor Chas Jarrett. “VFX supervisors, artists, directors, DoPs, studio executives, producers - we all look at images every day in many different ways. xSTUDIO will give us a common industry toolset for organizing and displaying all types of media, annotating, and editing them, and then securely sharing the results with each other, on our laptops, in screening rooms, or over the internet.”
“Our teams across the globe design, create, animate, and submit thousands of visual effects shots and animation sequences across multiple projects every day,” noted DNEG global chief technology officer Paul Salvini. “In xSTUDIO, we have created a modern, flexible, feature-rich playback and review application that we hope will become the new industry standard. By freely sharing xSTUDIO as an open source project with our clients and our industry partners we are encouraging everyone to use and develop the toolset so that we all benefit from the collective expertise in our community.”
The review app will feature a modern, feature-rich, and pipeline-agnostic core application, while also providing a full Python API, C++ plugin framework, and extensive use of open source libraries to allow contributors full control of its integration into their pipelines.
“By developing xSTUDIO and releasing it as an open source project, DNEG has created an opportunity for greater collaboration and more efficient workflows for content creation teams across our industry,” added DNEG chairman and CEO Namit Malhotra. “Built specifically for filmmakers by filmmakers, we are thrilled to launch this innovative, flexible platform that will support substantial efficiencies and advancements in our craft.”
More information is available here.
DNEG also announced, on January 25, 2022, that it entered into a definitive business combination agreement with Sports Ventures Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: AKIC). Upon the closing of the business combination, which is expected in the first half of 2022, the combined public company will be named DNEG. More information is available here.
Source: DNEG
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
