qube! aids vr at psyop
Geraint Evans discovers how the flexibility of Pipelinefx’s Qube! helps create VR content
How Qube! has helped Psyop create VR content
the award-winning creative agency, Psyop, which has offices in New York and LA, has drawn over 600 million views for its Clash of Clans ads. In part, this is down to its new VR and 360-degree content, with Pipelinefx’s render farm manager Qube! proving crucial.
“One of our big challenges lately has been rendering 360-degree and VR content,” says Andy Jones, Psyop’s head of VFX. “The number of assets that need to be loaded is often much larger than for a typical shot.” With such a strain on Psyop’s render farm, which can scale up to 500 nodes, an efficient manager was needed. This is where Pipelinefx’s Qube! comes in.
The render farm manager allows Psyop to efficiently use its resources as it produces VR experiences alongside traditional animated and live-action projects. “What drew us to Qube! was its open architecture,” says Alon Gibli, head of pipeline at Psyop. “Its extensive Python API gives us practically unlimited flexibility when it comes to integrating software with the render farm,” he explains.
That flexibility is crucial, as the company tries to marry the diverse needs of the various software it works with. “We have developed tools that rely on Qube!
qube!’s extensive python api gives us almost unlimited flexibility when it comes to integrating software with the render farm Alon Gibli, head of pipeline, Psyop
to perform a variety of essential pipeline tasks,” says Alon. “using the configuration options provided, our artists can easily open their rendered images in a pipelineaware RV session directly from Qube!’s Wranglerview,” he explains.
As well as its open architecture, Psyop has found Qube! to be particularly good at managing workflow, as the team tend to rely heavily on in-batch rendering rather than generating standalone archives. “The ability to use scripted logic from inside the application gives us a lot of control over how data moves through the pipeline, and helps us avoid file server bottlenecks,” says Alan, before praising Qube! on its unique suitability. “Although most render managers can handle these jobs to varying degrees, Qube! is one of the few that tracks software instances and agenda items independently.”
This power and flexibility makes Qube! the ideal solution for Psyop as it looks to scale its rendering pipeline to meet the demands of VR and 360-degree video. “Render management is a crucial task,” says Jean-françois Panisset, Psyop’s CTO. “We’re very happy for Qube! to take care of it for us, so that we can dedicate our resources to solving new technical problems for which solutions can’t be purchased off the shelf.” With Qube! providing the muscle, the emmy-winning team at Psyop are free to focus on more VR and 360-degree creative content in the future.