Introduction

In this section, we are getting our hands dirty and showing an example on how the new Framework can be customised to a studio specific needs.

The aim with this exercise is to inspire the reader on what can be achieved - build a fragment of a VFX studio pipeline that aids the artists to working the right way, with correct file naming convention, minimising tedious and error prone tasks.

Warning

The ftrack framework are subject to change with the next major version release, when config driven pipeline environments will be introduced. Appropriate guidelines on how to migrate existing customisations will be provided by ftrack.

Checkout documentation code

The source code present in this tutorial, as fully working examples, can be found in the resource directory.

The tools we are about to build

In this tutorial, we will first show how to apply a custom file structure that will apply to all API location based file operations - Connect and DCC integrations.

Next we target Maya and extend the Framework integration with a set of tools:

  • DCC bootstrap extension - have the latest snapshot opened, or a new one generated from template and saved.

  • Custom loader - load a previewable (Quicktime) onto a camera image plane in Maya.

  • Post a message on Slack upon publish, with an asset version identifier and thumbnail attached.

  • Add a custom tool to the ftrack menu.

We also walk you through the process of customising the launch of DCC applications - how to constrain application launch to a certain department (e.g. task type) and how to set environment variables plus add additional arguments.

At the end we go more in depth on how to build, deploy and maintain the customised Framework pipeline within the studio.

Important

In this tutorial configurations are made within the source code, at present time there is currently no GUI approach to configuring the Framework, and no way to provide separate builds and configurations per project or context in general. This is subject to be improved with the next major release of the Framework and Connect.