Autodesk acquired LoUPE, a cloud-based production pipeline for studios, and is hiring its developer Tangent Labs, who also develop the animation pipeline used at Tangent Animation.
Autodesk has acquired LoUPE, a cloud-based production pipeline for artists and studios, and is hiring the team that created it at Tangent Labs, the associate company of Tangent Animation that is responsible for developing their cloud-based animation pipeline. Tangent Labs is comprised of animation and film industry professionals with combined experience in CG animation, live action film production, visual effects and software development.
The acquisition supports Autodesk’s recently announced intention to make it easier for artists, producers and supervisors to work more efficiently, collaborate and scale with the pace of production through the use of cloud-based production systems.
Tangent Labs founder Jeff Bell
Among the people joining the Autodesk team is Tangent Labs founder Jeff Bell, along with his development team who have extensive software expertise in asset management and real time reporting and analytics. Well known in the 3D animation industry, Jeff started his career at Alias Wavefront, the original developers of Maya, and previously worked at Autodesk on the Maya team. His animation and asset management expertise are expected to help drive the future of production in the cloud, and shape future industry collaborations.
By combining the LoUPE pipeline and Tangent Lab talent with Autodesk’s skill in production management and content creation, the company aims to accelerate development of cloud production tools for the media and entertainment industries.
The LoUPE production pipeline uses AWS to increase efficiency and improve the everyday working experience for artists and teams. Data is held in the cloud on AWS S3, so that the team can be located anywhere. LoUPE’s media review, asset and project management tools are tightly integrated, and include real-time reporting and multiple ways to view data.
LoUPE supports Open Source Blender and/or commercial dcc packages, currently integrating with Blender and Maya. Support for Houdini, UnrealEd and Pixar USD will follow. LoUPE can also be used to integrate in-house rendering with AWS Thinkbox Deadline, cloud-based render management. The rendering can be done in the studio or in the cloud, or in combination by augmenting and scaling resources with AWS EC2 instances.
Remote real-time review sessions include playlist creation with resources from anywhere in LoUPE, scrub and mark-up, and task assignment. LoUPE also integrates with Teradici virtual workstations. www.autodesk.com
