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November 19, 2018If you’re in the visual effects, computer-generated graphics or 3D design world then Foundry is a software company you are likely to be quite familiar with.
Established over 20 years ago, in 1996, and based out of London, England Foundry has served up an ever-expanding range of software in the visual effects and 3D content spaces. Their list of clients include the likes of Google, Pixar, Mercedes-Benz and Sony Pictures among others, and if that doesn’t impress you, their 2017 showreel, you can watch it below, definitely will. Their portfolio of power-packed post-processing tools is widely used by studios and individuals the world over, and include the likes of the Nuke compositing tool, the Modo 3D modelling, rendering and texturing suite, and the Flix development pipeline among many more.
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At FMX 2018, one of the foremost conferences dedicated to the world of digital visual arts, Foundry unveiled a new product to add to this already impressive portfolio called Athera. It isn’t a complete bolt from the blue though, because those intimate with the comings and goings of the visual effects world will have heard whispers, caught glimpses and may even have gotten hands-on with the suite when it was in its beta testing phase and went under a different moniker – Project Elara. Before going any further though, let’s understand what Athera brings to the VFX table.
What is Foundry’s Athera and what does it do?
For those who aren’t familiar, Athera is a cloud-based platform with Google providing the cloud services that allows for the entire pipeline of VFX production to be executed from this single service. It isn’t just the myriad software that makeup Foundry’s portfolio, and third-party apps that tie into VFX workflow, or remote storage for this workflow though because Athera goes above and beyond and also offers top-of-the-line computing capabilities as part of its ambit of services.
Here’s a rundown of the Athera pipeline and the services offered within it:
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The Power options mentioned in the list above essentially run the software on workstations with twice the capability of standard ones.
Now that we know that Athera is capable of, here are just a few reasons why using a cloud-based VFX pipeline such as this is beneficial for VFX and 3D production houses.
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Clearly, Athera and this cloud-based approach to VFX production offers a host of benefits. All you need is a fast enough internet connection, something that’s becoming more and more accessible in all four corners of the world. It is no surprise then that this tech is being lauded as the way forward, and it is only a matter of time before more cloud-based VFX services similar to this begin to crop up.
A Fine Arts Graduate, Anoop brings 20+ yrs experience in the VFX and Animation industry. He brings his expertise in Animation-VFX for Television Commercials to Visual Effects for feature films, TV and Web series.