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French
3DVF: Whether in Google Docs or Minecraft, visual elements are essential to avoid messes: colored cursor, avatars allow in these two tools to know who is working on what. What approach did you take?
Jean-Colas Prunier: Today we use color codes to help identify users and their actions, it’s a classic. We have also recently added “avatars.” It is a feature that allows you to see where other users are located in a 3D scene if you are not alone working on it, and to see a 3D scene through the eyes of one of these users or to see live the view of a person filming a scene of the project in augmented reality. We continue to work on collaboration so that users can get the most out of it.
3DVF : The philosophy used in PocketStudio overturns the notion of versioning, since the progress is continuous. Specifically, is it possible in PocketStudio to save a status, to go back (globally or at a single user level) in case of an error?
Not yet but in fact we’re going to do much better than that.
“a speed and cost far below
current production methods”
3DVF: What is the roadmap for the coming months? Ultimately, which elements of the pipeline will you integrate into PocketStudio, and which parts will remain excluded?
Our ultimate goal is to demonstrate that PS can produce quality content at a speed and cost far below current production methods. We are developing this concept with partner studios that share the same ambition. In order to achieve the production gains we are aiming for, PS still lacks key tools that we are currently developing on the basis of our exchanges with these studios. These features will be available in future versions of PS. The desktop application allows today to proceed from the layout to editing, so everything that is upstream of the layout like the creation of assets is excluded for the moment. More secondary features such as atmospheric effects, hair, etc. are also missing, but we adapt the roadmap according to the needs of our users. If volumetrics are important for one of them we will add them quickly. Instead, we see PS as a platform to which we can add bricks according to the needs of its users.
3DVF : Since your SIGGRAPH presentation, NVIDIA has unveiled Omniverse, an online solution with an emphasis on collaboration. What is your vision of this product?
We share NVIDIA’s view on collaboration, so we’re on the same page, but we don’t have the same goals. NVIDIA’s goal with this project is to encourage our different industries to produce more 3D to sell more hardware. Our goal is to provide artists with a turnkey solution that facilitates the manufacturing of 3D films.
3DVF: A few words about the team behind PocketStudio?
The development team includes Stéphane, a versatile geek, Yvain, a rendering guru, and Armelle, who loves skeletons. Her thing is animation. Since the beginning of the year, two English colleagues have joined us: Tom who helps me move the solution into production and Paul who takes care of our web developments. And I’m Jean-Colas, a veteran of animation, the first person at Weta to have generated more than a TB of data on a Lord of the Rings shot in 2005 and the only one to have monopolized the entire computing power of the studio for 48 hours in a row, i.e. 4,000 processors at the time for 400 images. It was a test for Avatar. You understand better why I like to work fast now. We are recruiting developers.
3DVF: As a startup, it is not easy to make a place for oneself on the market: financing, communication are important challenges. What’s your strategy?
Our strategy is unwavering determination, because yes, the challenges are numerous and the adversity is strong. We sincerely hope that there will be creators and studios who will work with PocketStudio with as much pleasure and enthusiasm as we have had in developing it and using it to show the scope of its applications.
3DVF: What will PocketStudio’s business model be?
The alpha version is free with limits for the amount of data stored in the cloud (500 MiB) and for outgoing traffic (1.5GiB). We can increase these limits. Just contact us. In the future for independent users we will surely adopt a freemium / premium model. We want the solution to be accessible to everyone.
3DVF: In terms of development, the choice to create your own display system may come as a surprise: why didn’t you think of PocketStudio as an overlay for a game engine like Unreal? What are the limits of the animation creation solutions proposed in these engines?
The workflows of video game engines are different from those used in animation and film production. Because of this, they have a reputation for being difficult to access for artists from these backgrounds. There are also software architecture problems that make it very difficult for a game engine to play animation content as efficiently as software specifically designed for animation. For example, the engines are not designed so that several scenes are edited in the same sequence. It was therefore out of the question for us to develop PocketStudio on top of an existing engine. I had already done so with the adaptation of CryEngine to film production for a project I was responsible for at Crytek before PocketStudio, so I knew the limits of the drill. I also wanted the application to be natively collaborative. But it’s difficult to do this from a software point of view in a robust and efficient way if this functionality is not built into the software’s very foundation. So we really had to start from scratch.
3DVF: Also for development, you rely on Vulkan and RTX from NVIDIA. What do you think of these technologies, precisely as developers?
Vulkan’s reputation is justified. It is the new generation of APIs for real time with DirectX12 that allows finer control of the rendering pipeline. Moreover Vulkan also offers important portability possibilities. Our choice was confirmed since RTX extensions are now officially included in the Vulkan API.
As for RTX, I think it’s really a “game changer.” It puts raytracing at the heart of the real-time rendering pipeline in a very efficient way, since it is hardware-accelerated. From a software point of view, this ensures long-term evolution and compatibility. In addition, access to these technologies is reshuffling the cards in the world of real-time rendering, which is very positive for a startup like ours. We have chosen to start by developing an iterative path-tracing based on RTX, but we are convinced that raytracing will eventually enable us to reach a milestone in terms of real-time rendering quality. This is a path that we will continue to explore.
3DVF: Of course, as soon as there are online data exchanges and the Cloud, the issue of security comes into play. A few words on this subject?
As someone who has worked in studios such as ILM or Weta Digital, I am well aware of the importance of data confidentiality. We will work with the studios to pass all safety tests and obtain the necessary certifications. It is also possible to give a studio the possibility to use its own private server. But centralizing data in the cloud is an inevitable step forward. Companies like Weta, which recently announced that its production pipeline would be virtualized in the cloud, are already doing so. Attitudes are changing and the COVID crisis has contributed to this.
“centralizing data in the cloud
is an inevitable step forward”
3DVF: Finally, let’s come back to the apha: it is freely downloadable, but are there any constraints in terms of deployment, hardware, OS?
It is freely available on www.pocketstudio.io. All you have to do is download it, install it, register, and off you go… You need a PC with Windows, if possible an NVIDIA RTX GPU, and an ARCore-compatible Android phone. We want to develop iOS, MacOS, Linux versions but we need funding to do so. If you like PocketStudio, the best way to help us is to use it, join us on Discord where you can exchange and share your experiences and creations with our team and the PocketStudio user community, and talk about it on your favorite 3D forums.
For more information
The official website will allow you to download the software and to access the online help.
- Don’t hesitate to comment and to give us your thoughts about PocketStudio!
