Visual Effects Society Releases First-of-its-Kind VFX Reference Platform

The Visual Effects Society (VES), the industry's professional honorary society, has announced the release of the industry standard VFX Reference Platform. The VFX Reference Platform is a set of tools and library versions to be used as a common target platform for building software for the VFX industry. Its purpose is to minimize incompatibilities between different software packages, ease the support burden for Linux-based pipelines and encourage further adoption of Linux by software vendors. The Reference Platform is updated annually by a group of software vendors in collaboration with the VES Technology Committee.

The Calendar Year 2014 Reference Platform is the first-of-its-kind and represents the closest collaboration yet between software solutions providers to converge on a common platform. The CY2015 Platform developed for 2015 software releases has now been published in draft form and feedback is invited from software vendors and customer studios. The final version will be published in August 2014 and announced at SIGGRAPH.

By working with industry software providers, we've identified major library versions that are updated annually that can be shared between all major apps. This is a huge step forward for software distribution for VFX on Linux, said Jeffrey A. Okun, VES Board Chair. We're proud that the VES Technology Committee, under the leadership of Rob Bredow and Nick Cannon, has successfully addressed this critical challenge and developed a much-needed solution.

The VES worked in collaboration with leading VFX companies and application providers to develop the platform, which provides a forum to coordinate major platform upgrades, easing the transition to new technologies, while increasing reliable interoperability and lowering costs for vendors and customers.

For the past year, the VES has been collaborating with Autodesk and other software vendors to create a reference Linux platform to address the endemic hassle of version-itis.' We're thrilled the VES is taking the lead to rally both the visual effects community and vendors on the Linux platform to organize this working group and benefit all of our customers, said Chris Vienneau, Autodesk Media & Entertainment Director of Product Management.

The VFX Reference Platform initiative aims to prune superfluous technical variety so we can all focus on stuff that matters. Tweak applauds all of the effort that goes into this indispensable project, said Seth Rosenthal, Tweak Software.

The Reference Platforms along with further supporting information, including how to contribute feedback, are available on http://vfxplatform.com.

About the Visual Effects Society

The Visual Effects Society is a professional honorary society dedicated to advancing the arts, sciences and applications of visual effects and to upholding the highest standards and procedures for the visual effects profession. It is the entertainment industrys only official organization representing the extended global community of visual effects practitioners, including supervisors, artists, producers, technology developers, educators and studio executives. VES' almost 3,000 members in 33 countries worldwide contribute to all areas of entertainment - film, television, commercials, animation, music videos, games and new media. To learn more about the VES, visit http://www.visualeffectssociety.com.

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