Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/714180
SIGGRAPH NEWS www.postmagazine.com 40 POST AUGUST 2016 QUANTUM SHOWCASES ANIMATION & VFX WORKFLOW REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE SAN JOSE, CA — Quantum Corp. (www.quantum.com) has announced a new anima- tion and visual eff ects (VFX) workfl ow reference architecture built on the company's Xcellis high-performance shared storage. According to the company, this is a new, robust and exceptionally-fl exible architecture that delivers optimal storage capabilities for animation and editorial operations, thereby streamlining workfl ows and boosting overall effi ciency and productivity. Features include the ability to resolve collaboration challenges in animation/VFX and editorial workfl ows. The time- and resource-consum- ing task of transferring content between the animation and editorial departments over a network is a key obstacle for post facilities seeking to maximize workfl ow effi ciencies. In some cases, entire facilities must essentially shut down for hours each day as they copy material over the network and dedicate storage systems on both sides of this divide to writing and reading data. Quantum's new reference architecture enables users to overcome these challenges, maintaining stor- age for both animation/VFX and editorial with- in a single shared environment that supplies the type and degree of connectivity required across the end-to-end workfl ow. The new workfl ow also enables greater fl exibility and effi ciency with a single storage platform. Boasting a unique architecture that integrates key workfl ow storage components into an easy-to-manage, highly scalable hardware solution, Xcellis supports both Fibre Channel and Ethernet clients, hosts workfl ow applications and manages data across multiple storage tiers. Powered by Quantum's StorNext platform, Xcellis also allows users to optimize any of up to 64 separate fi le systems to meet the performance requirements of diff erent departments. These characteristics provide a host of benefi ts to post facilities that share media across animation and editorial departments, includ- ing: Storage of all media fi les on a single system with a single namespace, eliminating the cost of managing and maintaining multiple storage silos; Ethernet-based NAS and DLC access, providing the speed and availability animators need, while direct Fibre Channel connections supply the editorial department with highly predicable perfor- mance for demanding high-resolution content; and render farms that can connect to storage for direct access to content during rendering, eliminating the need for bulk data dumps and network shutdowns and fast, easy and cost-eff ective system scaling through the simple addition of more storage, making it easy to accommodate growth and new technologies. THE FOUNDRY LAUNCHES KATANA 2.5 FOR WINDOWS LONDON — The Foundry (www.thefoundry.co.uk) has launched the latest update to its professional look development and lighting tool. Responding to customer demand, Katana 2.5 off ers support for Windows, putting the tool in front of more artists working in VFX, broadcast and animation. The new port makes Katana's full toolset available to Windows-based studios, previously unable to take advantage of the famous "lighting recipes." Additionally, the toolset is easier to install and supports a number of plug-ins, including Renderman, V-Ray, Arnold and recently, 3Delight. Equally suited to both short- and long-form animation and VFX projects, Katana's design was created to help artists con- quer a notoriously time-consuming process. Used in studios from Industrial Light & Magic and Pixar to Atomic Fiction, Katana allows artists to turn creative lighting setups into "recipes" that can be shared amongst the team, cutting down the time it takes to turn out complicated shots. Katana 2.5 is now available as a beta release and will be ship- ping soon; supported platforms are Linux RHEL Centos 6 and Windows 7 64-bit. SHOTGUN SOFTWARE DEBUTS SHOTGUN 7.0 LOS ANGELES — Shotgun Software (www.shotgunsoftware.com), developer of the cloud-based review and production tracking software, announced Shotgun 7.0 at SIGGRAPH 2016. Shotgun is focused on solving collabora- tive review challenges at studios, and making it easier for teams of all sizes to upload, share, view and then keep track of all of their media on a single, intuitive platform. This latest update expands Shotgun's review capabilities by introducing editorial cut data into the review process, enabling teams to view their work at any time, in context with the latest cut. Shotgun 7.0 highlighted features include: Import Cut, where editorial in- formation is quickly published to Shotgun, summarizing changes that can be shared with anyone on the project; the ability to play cuts anywhere, where with one click, users can watch the full cut either in the browser or in the Shotgun RV desktop player. Filtering tools control which shot versions show up in the cut, such as "latest," "latest animation" or "latest approved." Features also include the ability to view any shot in a Review Session in Context of the Cut. Here, teams working through shot versions in review sessions can seamlessly switch between viewing the shot in the review playlist and viewing the shot in the context of the cut. With track overlapping cuts features, users can quickly access a full history of all cuts on a project, including overlapping cuts such as :30, :60, :90 cuts on commercial projects, or both sequence and trailer cuts on fi lm projects. Also, a new data model tracking the cut data is fully exposed in Shotgun's API, so studios with development resources can integrate with their pipelines. Shotgun 7.0 pricing starts at $30 per account/per month.