Keeping it together … in glorious 3D
May 5, 2006 9:59 AM   Subscribe

Advice on digital asset management/version control for a baby Pixar?

I'm looking at options for a small digital animation/imaging/3D rendering house to control their assets. They've previously been managing them by hand, but are now growing beyond that level, both in number of files and in personnel.

The ideal situation would provide robust versioning, plus some sort of better-than-the-Finder browser for controlled items. GUI interface is also a bonus for all the arty types. Unsurprisingly, it's an all-Mac shop, with all the usual digital film/photo software. 3D is mostly done on Cinema 4D, but they'll be expanding in the future. The server is an Xserve.

Budget is not limitless, but it doesn't necessarily have to be £0.

Any ideas? Anyone have experience in a similar set up?
posted by bonaldi to Computers & Internet (9 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Could you give us an example?
posted by parallax7d at 10:26 AM on May 5, 2006


Response by poster: OK: A team of people work on a set of images. They need to keep the originals, and various versions of the works in progress. They also need to not stand on one another's toes. They do this manually on the network, with folders and things. It sounds like the sort of thing subversion is perfect for, in text-land. Is there a better solution in picture land? in movie land?
posted by bonaldi at 10:34 AM on May 5, 2006


Subversion can do version controls on binary files just fine. The repository won't balloon either, as it will do binary deltas just as it does text deltas.

I know a guy who works for a major game maker and they version all their sound and image assets in Perforce. They seem to be doing well with it.
posted by zsazsa at 10:47 AM on May 5, 2006


Response by poster: Perforce does look brilliant. I suspect it's close to the top end of the budget, however. I guess it's somewhere between subversion and perforce that's ideal.
posted by bonaldi at 10:57 AM on May 5, 2006


I think you're looking for Alienbrain. It's much like Perforce, but with a focus on art instead of code. It does version control, and has some limited previewing and diff'ing tools (e.g. here are the last two versions side-by-side), but I don't know how much support it has for 3D previewing. I've only used it for 2D imaging. It may be too pricey, though.
posted by Sibrax at 11:01 AM on May 5, 2006


Depending on your capacity for pain there's Right Hemisphere. We had them in for their dog and pony and it was pretty impressive. We decided it wasn't for us but in certain circumstances it could be just what the doctor ordered.
posted by phearlez at 1:07 PM on May 5, 2006


Whoopsie - left off that the product in question was Deep Server and priced at about $20,000. In the end we got digital storage manager from these guys for about $6,000 but I was not involved in that evaluation not have I used it at this point.
posted by phearlez at 1:09 PM on May 5, 2006


You should read Information Rules by Shapiro and Varian.
posted by radioamy at 7:29 PM on May 6, 2006


Response by poster: Radioamy, could you say why? What will I learn from it?
posted by bonaldi at 8:08 PM on May 6, 2006


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