PJ Foley, from VFXnexus contacted us recently to let us know about the launch of the 2.0 version of their collaboration software dedicated to CG artists. We caught up with him for a quick chat about the strengths of the new software.
What motivated you to develop VFXnexus?
VFX Nexus was originally created to solve a problem. I was put in charge of two teams of VFX Artists, each on opposite sides of the globe. When I started working for this particular company, notes and the status of shots were being tracked by editing a Word document and emailing it back and forth. Needless to say this wasn't very effective and the only one who had the complete picture of what was going on was the one that "had the ball" at that time. The situation was terribly error prone and the status of shots wasn't always clear.
Having noticed the trend of web-based collaboration taking hold I knew this would be a perfect opportunity to start to architect a system specifically for the VFX and animation field. I partnered with Matt Nisonger and TJ Sakasegawa and together we set forth the system that would become VFX Nexus.
What size/type of studio would benefit from using VFXnexus?
We designed VFX Nexus to be perfect for any size studio. What's great is that it works as effectively in a one-room office situation as it does for a group of freelancers across a city or even a company with divisions spread out around the world.
A new studio may find that some of the principles VFX Nexus present a great basis for a production pipeline. That said, we also allow customization in the terminology used within VFX Nexus, as well as the number of steps a shot may go through, and more.
What are the major advantages your application has over some of the more mainstream tools like Autodesk's solutions or outside the CG industry platforms like Microsoft Sharepoint?
For less than cup of gourmet coffee per day per artist we can save the cost of missed notes, incorrectly communicated shot information and the need to constantly poll the workforce to get a status update from each artist.
Our advantages over other available systems are several: First and foremost, VFX Nexus is designed specifically for visual effects and cg animation only. We are not trying to be all things to all people like some of the mainstream products. We also have a low cost of entry. For less than cup of gourmet coffee per day per artist we can save the cost of missed notes, incorrectly communicated shot information and the need to constantly poll the workforce to get a status update from each artist. Our system doesn't require a consultant to implement it or train users and it requires no,additional hardware to buy or software to install. The learning curve is very fast. Concern for training the artist workforce should be non-existent as any artist that can check their email from a web browser will be comfortable with this system in minutes. Both artists and supervisor/admins quickly come to rely on VFX Nexus because it truly does keep all the information they need right in front of them. And if need be, any user can follow a tutorial or a screencast to get working very quickly.
What difference do you want to make for artists/studios?
The main impact we'd like to make on the vfx industry is to let studios of any size know there is a better and inexpensive way to manage their workflow. Too many times I see supervisors slaving away over a spreadsheet, passing through the columns of data again and again to make sure there's nothing being missed. Even more tragic is the data is hard to share when it's kept like this. It also tends to be incomplete- storing all shot data is nearly impossible, and keeping a tab of all notes given is also likely not happening. It also hides a big-picture,sense of what needs to happen from the artists. VFX Nexus not only solves these issues, but adds the ability to create tasks for anything that is not a shot--model building, for example. Further, it allows supervisors to monitor the progress of multiple projects simultaneously. A project can be a single episode of a television show, an entire movie or even a commercial project. Add to this the ability to attach files to any shot and share them worldwide and we've just changed the way a studio works for the better.
Can you give us any hints to future features that you're currently developing?
VFX Nexus is constantly being improved and is always striving to provide more abilities while maintaining an ease of use. To this end we're going to keep unifying and simplifying the features we have and adding others. Coming soon is a feature that will make remote approvals of shots in progress and/or finals painless and secure. It will give the ability to collect feedback from clients without disturbing the rest of the workflow for the artists and supervisors.
Find out more about VFX Nexus and try out a free demo on the official site
