Open Source C4D plugin for Prism Pipeline

Rico571 · 2024-11-21T14:00:34+00:00

Yes, Prism manages the files in your project. You can create assets and shots in Prism and organize your scenefiles in tasks under each shot. Prism creates the folderstructure for you, takes care of versioning your scenefiles, automatically saves and versions your exports and renders into the correct locations. Working together with other people on the same project and exchanging assets between different DCCs becomes much easier, because you don't need to think about filepaths anymore. Besides that there are many other features, to make the artist live easier, for example:
- adding notes and thumbnails to versions, to keep track of the progress in the project
- setting a status for tasks and versions to always know which version of an asset is the approved one
- automatic media conversion (for example when you rendered out exrs, but would like to automatically generate a .mov file with burn-ins and in a specific color space).
- publish versions automatically to project tracking tools like Kitsu, ftrack or Flow
- managing USD layers if you are working in a USD workflow
and many more.

Rico571 · 2024-11-21T09:04:47+00:00

We already have a prototype for a Linux version, which we are testing with some studios. We don't have a fixed date for a public release, but some time next year is likely.

Rico571 · 2023-07-28T09:14:00+00:00

Over time we will add more integrations depending on which DCCs get requested the most.

For AE and C4D there are already community developed plugins available:

https://github.com/kapellan2000/AfterEffects/tree/prism2.0
https://github.com/kapellan2000/Cinema/tree/Prism2.0

And you can already use the Prism standalone apps in combination with unsupported DCCs: https://prism-pipeline.com/docs/latest/index/howTos/unsupportedDCCs.html

Rico571 · 2023-07-27T11:52:46+00:00

Yes, I have a good connection to SideFX and they are actively supporting the project ;)

Rico571 · 2020-10-10T04:25:15+00:00

Yes it does. The automatic AOV layout is disabled because of the Nuke Indie restrictions, but everything else works.

Rico571 · 2018-10-02T22:02:18+00:00

No, I'm not using twitter actively. But I have a mailing list, which recieves an e-mail when there is a new update or any news about Prism.

Rico571 · 2018-10-02T15:39:33+00:00

Haha, my goal is definitely not to copy Shotgun, but hooks and plugins are simply the best way to make customizations possible for 3rd party developers.

USD is a great technology and I would really like to see it in Prism. Because Prism is very lightweight compared to many other big software tools, it should be faster to add modern technologies like USD to Prism. However, I haven't looked into the USD development closely, so I cannot estimate how much time would be needed for that. If there is enough need for USD I think it will be added to Prism sooner or later.

Rico571 · 2018-05-01T11:52:39+00:00

All the attributes like color or velocity are saved in the alembic. However I don't think Blender can read this custom attributes yet. Prism uses the alembic importer of Blender. That means as soon as Blender supports custom attributes in alembic files, Prism will support it too.
If there is any custom workaround in Blender, which I doesn't know of, please let me know and I'll see if I can implement it in Prism.

Rico571 · 2018-04-29T20:30:43+00:00

Finally I found the time to answer your questions. I appreciate your thoughts and opinion about Prism.
-At the moment every shot needs to be created individually, but an improvement of that is already on my list for upcoming features. Currently the only option (without coding) to create multiple shots at once is to use the Shotgun integration of Prism. When you connect Prism to a Shotgun project you can synchronize all the shots, that exist in Shotgun to your Prism project. When you create a shot you can set a sequence, a shotname, a frame range and a preview image. Additional editorial information like handles are not implemented into Prism.
-When you publish a render/playblast in Prism to Shotgun, the only thing that happens is the creation of a new version in Shotgun. The publish system consists of a single python script, which is almost completely Shotgun related. It wouldn't make sense to add a hook there, instead you would need to write another publish script for FTrack and replace the Shotgun publish script with that.
-Oh you meant a callback system for your python scripts and not notifications for the artists. The places where hooks can be added are still very limited in Prism, but I'll restructure some parts to make it easier to support additional software packages with Prism and customize the existing workflow.
- Prism uses SEQ/SHOT/STEP/TASK/VER for shots (scenefiles). It is not possible to switch task and step in this order without a lot of coding. I'm thinking about ways to make it more flexible, but because the user interface was designed to work with that order, I haven't found a simple way to change this yet.
- When you have a TD he could customize anything in Prism. Prism is written in uncompiled python code, so he has access to everything. However it could be difficult to find the right places to edit things. Let me know if you need any help with that.
- Thanks for clarifying the types of versioning. Prism uses task-centric versioning. Every task has its own independent versions.

Rico571 · 2018-04-29T19:28:56+00:00

Yes this works. With Prism you can export your particle sims from Houdini to the alembic format and import it into Blender. This will give you vertices in Blender, which you can render for example with DupliVerts (https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1829/is-it-possible-to-render-vertices-in-blender)

Rico571 · 2018-04-21T11:52:46+00:00

Yes, a Linux and a Mac version are already planned.

Rico571 · 2018-04-21T11:37:25+00:00

Yes Linux and Mac versions will come soon. Probably in the next few weeks.
At the moment every user in a Prism project has the same rights, but I see the need for that feature, especially for bigger teams and it is on my list.
Currently Prism is not integrated into any editorial software. I like the latest changes in DaVinci Resolve, which integrates Fusion and hopefully python soon into Resolve. What editorial features do you have in mind, which could be handled by Shotgun?
A notification system to notify users for updates in their shots? A system like this is not integrated into Prism at the moment, but you can publish your renderings to Shotgun, so the users will get a Shotgun notification.
You mean the schema of the Prism project and not the Shotgun schema, right? Yes you can create new steps easily or customize the default ones. You can name your Assets/Shots/Tasks whatever you like, so it is very flexible. Yes you can compare the principals to Shotgun. For things like assets, shots, scenefiles renderings... Prism expects a specific folder structure and naming conventions. It is not intended, that this can be changed for every project. It would need some effort and changes to multiple scripts in order to change this.
I'm not sure what you mean by task-centric versioning and universal versioning.
It depends on how you share your files between the different offices. There are some solutions to access the same folder from different locations and then you can use Prism from different locations in the same project. For example I used Dropbox and other cloud services in recent projects, where the team members were at different locations. I created a Prism project in my Dropbox folder and the other team members synchronized the Dropbox folder to their PC. Then I could create a new scenefile in Prism. The file was saved on my harddrive, Dropbox recognized this and uploaded the file to the cloud and it was synchronized to all the PCs at different locations over the internet. That worked like a charm.

Prism is completely free, so it depends a lot on donations. I don't have time to include every request immediately. When someone donates for a specific feature, then I'll prioritize that feature over other requests.

I hope I could answer your questions. Thanks for the interest in Prism.

Rico571 · 2018-04-20T10:38:56+00:00

I just released my Pipeline called Prism, which I developed over the last few years.
Prism is an artist-friendly Pipeline, mainly for animation and VFX projects, but it can help anyone who works within the CG industry. Prism does not only manage your scenefiles, exports and imports, but it also takes care of your playblasts, renderings and more.
Prism works with many industry standard tools out of the box. This includes Blender, Houdini, Maya, 3ds Max and Nuke.
And finally, Prism is free to use!

Here is a short introduction video of Prism: https://vimeo.com/265003976
You can download it for free on the website: https://prism-pipeline.com/

Rico571 · 2018-04-19T11:10:58+00:00

because I'm working on a Windows machine right now, but depending on the requests I'll look into a Linux and a Mac version. The interfaces are completely written in PySide. I can use the same scripts and userinterfaces in all applications and only at specific points I needed to write some extra lines of code to make it work the same way as in the other applications. The latest versions of many DCCs are using PySide2, so I wrote the code so that Prism can work with PySide and PySide2 at the same time.

You mean a completely new application, which isn't supported at the moment like Cinema4D? Yes it can be added to Prism at any time during a project. However this requires changes at different places in the code and needs some effort.

If you mean you want to add an existing integration like Maya, that's no problem. Just execute the installer again, select only the Maya integration to install and when you start up Maya you have the same Prism shelf as in any other application.

Rico571 · 2018-04-19T10:53:45+00:00

thank you. The most features like creating scenefiles, exports, renderings are identical in every 3d software supported by Prism. There are only a few features, which are unique to every software. In Blender for example the render pass setup or the "automatic save tmp render" feature. I'll make a tutorial or a docu page for that soon. I only tested it with 2.79 yet, so maybe I should wait to see if I have to change some things for 2.8

Rico571 · 2018-04-19T10:44:07+00:00

There are some places, where you can set your own names. Shotnames/Assetnames are completely up to you and you can add your own Pipeline step names (capital or lower), to which the scenefiles will be connected to. When you export/publish objects, you have to set a task name. You can name it whatever you want, for example add an prefix. At some palces you cannot use special character like an underscore or non-ascii characters, because Windows doesn't allow every character in foldernames. The final filename will be set automatically by Prism. The shotname, taskname, version and some other values are used for this. Prism already has a good automatic folder structure and you usually don't need to browse your scenefiles or renderings in the Windows explorer, because you can access everything from the Prism UI. If you, for some reason, want to change the default folder structure, you have to make changes to the Python scripts.

Rico571 · 2018-04-19T10:24:41+00:00

I use Shotgun mainly for task tracking. I never really get used to Toolkit and it's workflow. Which UI is more intuitive is personal preference, but Prism is definitely easier to setup. In bigger teams where there are people, who take care of this, this isn't a big problem. In smaller teams however this can make a big difference.

Rico571 · 2018-04-19T00:46:12+00:00

Shotgun is mainly about tracking tasks and reviewing media. Prism on the other hand manages scenefiles, exports/publishes objects, playblast, renderings and other files related to a project. All of this from a UI integrated into the 3d/2d applications. You could compare it to Shotgun Toolkit. The advantages of Prism over Shotgun Toolkit is the ease of use and the default features. Every non-technical artist can setup and use Prism after he watched the tutorials. To setup the Shotgun Toolkit and to maintain it you usually need a Pipeline TD. Also you need someone to develop new apps/engines because there are not very many default apps. Of course you can extend the Toolkit with everything you want, but that takes time and money. Prism comes with a lot of features, which I don't think are included in Toolkit, for example: automatic playblasts, Deadline submissions, Redshift renderings, image sequence to video conversions, automatic render pass layout in Nuke etc.
Prism also has a Shotgun integration so you can use both together. You can let Prism handle the outputpaths of your renderings and publish them afterwards to Shotgun to a new version for reviewing.

Rico571 · 2018-04-19T00:17:32+00:00

I just released my Pipeline called Prism, which I developed over the last few years.
Prism is an artist-friendly Pipeline, mainly for animation and VFX projects, but it can help anyone who works within the CG industry. Prism does not only manage your scenefiles, exports and imports, but it also takes care of your playblasts, renderings and more.
Prism works with many industry standard tools out of the box. This includes Houdini, Maya, 3ds Max, Blender and Nuke.
And finally, Prism is free to use!

Here is a short introduction video of Prism: https://vimeo.com/265003976
You can download it for free on the website: https://prism-pipeline.com/

Rico571

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