Magnopus Delivers Cutting-Edge VR/AR Experiences with ShotGrid-Powered Pipeline

By Christian Deiss, Head of Pipeline at Magnopus

Magnopus is a content-focused technology company with a background in film and games. We’re bridging the divide that often exists between tech and content companies, so why we’re creating works hand in hand with how we’re building. We have the ability to take immersive projects from concept to consumer launch across all major platforms from design, through art and engineering. We’re particularly attracted to solving hard problems, regardless of the industry in which we find them. We’re drawn toward challenging projects that haven’t been done before, with a strong background in entertainment and education. Most of our projects include AR and VR, but always with a social multiplayer cross-platform approach to connect people in shared experiences.

The project I’m most proud of is “CocoVR,” which we created with Pixar. It illustrates the power of VR by emphasizing its social aspect. For anyone not familiar with the experience, up to four friends can join the experience and explore the world of Coco together. Another powerful project is “Mission:ISS,” which lets people go somewhere they’ve never been—the International Space Station. It was validated by several astronauts and was used by the Children’s Hospice in Los Angeles for children who were getting painful treatments in-home.

It took three months to integrate ShotGrid into our production process. Most of that time was spent customizing the ShotGrid Toolkit with custom publish plugins and training the project teams. I’m leading a team of three pipeline developers who are extending existing apps, in addition to creating new ones; and ShotGrid is the backbone of our entire asset production process.

We are tracking multiple projects simultaneously, with approximately 75 users actively using ShotGrid. Our main focus is on asset production, including modeling, rigging, texturing, shading, and animation. We track all of our assets, their tasks, and the generated files in ShotGrid. This includes not only internal asset production, but also all interactions with the client. We handle our deliveries and reviews through ShotGrid. Especially for animation, we need to track multiple sequences for all the different animation clips.

One of the key benefits for us is the standardized and automated publishing process. We cut back our manual steps by 70% and the resulting data is consistent and reliable. Artists have more time to do value-added work. ShotGrid also facilitates centralized communication between project teams for asset production on published versions and with clients on deliveries and review pages.

Communication between project teams and myself is key. I meet with every project on a weekly basis to discuss the current status and upcoming requirements. Some of our team members are directly embedded in the project teams to allow a close collaboration. We also have monthly user groups with all interested artists to present new solutions, discuss questions, and collect new requirements.

All task assignments and review are done in ShotGrid. For internal review, we generate turntables and playblasts as part of the publish/handoff process. This material is also shared with vendors and clients, either directly in the ShotGrid web interface or through the client review app. ShotGrid is also key for our remote workers, as we collaborate with vendors on projects. They have a dedicated ShotGrid app that allows them to create a delivery and directly ingest their files into our system. These files are processed to generate review material and to make everything available to our internal production team. Any feedback is directly added to the delivery or the versions generated by the contractor. On the other end, we use the client review app to present our latest work to the client and to receive direct feedback.

What I enjoy most about pipeline development is helping teams and projects to succeed through my support and developments. The work is better when the team works together—it fosters inspiration in each individual and moves the group toward greater innovation.

At Magnopus, we’re working at the cutting edge of making new kinds of experiences in AR and VR. And through using ShotGrid, our artists can do more value-added work, which allows us to accomplish bigger projects at a higher quality. Coordinating with multiple vendors and subcontractors all at the same time would simply not be possible without ShotGrid.

ShotGrid … performed better than any other solution, especially with the ability to integrate it into an existing pipeline.