After many years of Shotgun being the trusted production management platform for Animation, VFX and Games, an increasing number of creative studios in different industries are adopting Shotgun for the features it offers.
As Autodesk is a leader in automotive design, we hear from our customers the pain they experience every day. Design files are stored on disk, often in the wrong place. Project schedules are maintained manually and aren’t connected to the tools that created the work in the first place, and department leads, managers and design executives don’t have a view on the progress of a project, what artists are working on and most importantly, what designs look like.
Automotive design studios are turning to Shotgun with increased excitement around managing their design projects and the people working on them. They see the potential for improving collaboration between the different stakeholders, adding increased visibility of the current manual process and support for managing data in the design studio, using Shotgun Toolkit.
How does Shotgun help an automotive design studio?
Project Management - At the core, Shotgun helps connect all aspects of the studio. Project Managers can digitally create high level schedules for the design project. Managers can track the Projects, all the digital assets to be created (concepts, themes, parts) and then block in all the work to be done. These Tasks are assigned to users, given due dates, and are automatically connected to the work being done through the Toolkit Integrations.
File Management - Shotgun Toolkit now integrates with Autodesk’s Alias and VRED family of products. This unlocks a direct connection with Shotgun from key tools in the design studio. Design teams can easily save, load and manage their working files in a structured way. Design teams also can Publish their work, making it automatically available for review by a manager or easily picked up by a downstream department. For example, Visualization has the tools within Shotgun to easily access the latest files from the modelling department, meaning they can begin to work earlier and get updates over time when the model changes.
Review and Approval – Review work right in the web browser through powerful Shotgun review tools. Design teams publishing work automatically creates a “Version” for review, which Managers can add notes, draw overs, or attach reference material with all of this info being sent directly back to the artist who created the work for a seamless feedback loop. Managers no longer need to dive into heavy 3D applications to review work on a daily basis. Design Executives can have an insight into the designs or be given a private review portal just for them using the Client Review experience.
Automation and Customization – Studio workflows are complex and have specific needs. Shotgun allows extensive customization to track all necessary information pertaining to your project (naming conventions, common vehicle or part names, hardware in the studio, etc.). Extend the capability by building automations using the powerful REST and Python APIs that Shotgun offers. Complete a Milestone? Have Shotgun package up relevant data and share with engineering. Approve a design? Automatically kickoff high quality turntable renders of the latest model.
If you would like to read more about these workflows check out Getting Started in Automotive. Interested in trying Shotgun in your studio? Sign up for a site and begin your trial today.