Academy Software Foundation launches playback and review open source tools

The Foundation has also launched a new Digital Production Example Library, created as a vendor-neutral platform for test content with a uniform license agreement

By Jenny Priestley

Published: August 9, 2022

The Foundation has also launched a new Digital Production Example Library, created as a vendor-neutral platform for test content with a uniform license agreement

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The Academy Software Foundation is launching a new project led by Autodesk, DNEG, and Sony Pictures Imageworks, with the mission to build a unified open source toolset for playback, review and approval of motion picture and related professional media.

The Open Review Initiative will be guided by an umbrella Technical Steering Committee (TSC) comprised of lead architects and maintainers from each company, as the three companies make their RV, xSTUDIO, and parts of the itView ecosystem available to the open source community for the first time.

The umbrella TSC will guide the strategy for each initially standalone code repository, with the goal of gradually converging the three into a cohesive, state-of-the-art review and approval framework, said the Foundation.

The review and approval landscape encompasses a deceptively large amount of interconnected systems - including playback, production tracking, asset management, editorial integration, transcoding, transport, and annotations, said Erik Strauss, who served as chair of the Review and Approval Working Group and will continue to participate as the umbrella TSC chair for the Open Review Initiative.

Each of the code contributions from Autodesk, DNEG, and Imageworks bring significant value and address different areas that we aim to incorporate into a best-in-class system. Their convergence over time, driven by a shared vision and contribution strategy, is the most efficient approach to solving the needs of the whole creative community.

The Open Review Initiative is the outcome of a Working Group of the Academy Software Foundation, and shows the commitment of our community and member companies to develop software together when it makes sense, to avoid duplication of efforts and for the benefit of our industry at large, added David Morin, executive director, Academy Software Foundation. I want to acknowledge the leadership of our member companies Autodesk, DNEG, and Sony Pictures Imageworks who are contributing code to seed the Open Review Initiative, and invite everyone interested to participate in this important open source project.

The Foundation has also launched a new Digital Production Example Library, created as a vendor-neutral platform for test content with a uniform license agreement available to developers, researchers and educators.

Assets hosted by DPEL at launch include:

Animal Logic's ALab Phase 2: A full production scene with over 300 production quality assets, two animated characters, and baked procedural fur and fabric all provided as a part of the first open-sourced USD scene and shot context from a studio.

Intel's Volumetric Clouds Library: A collection of 30 VDB cloud assets, including both dense and sparse clouds, at resolutions ranging from quite small (< 1 MB) to quite large (> 8 GB).

Noa character from Amazon Web Services (AWS): A complete animatable main character, with rig, geometry, textures, and hair groom, represented in Maya. Noa is the hero of the short film Spanner, created by AWS's in-house production team FuzzyPixel.

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