The field of cloud-based production tools continues to grow apace. This week sees the launch of Loupe, a new cg production solution from Tangent Labs (the sister company of Canadian studio Tangent Animation).
The cloud-based Loupe integrates all aspects of cg production into one package, from asset and project management to render management. It is compatible with major software including Blender and Autodesk Maya; support for SideFX’s Houdini, Epic Games’ Unreal, and Pixar’s Universal Scene Description (USD) will follow in later releases.
The tool sprung from Tangent Animation’s work on the feature Next Gen, which debuted on Netflix in 2018. Facing tight deadlines after Netflix acquired the film during production, the Tangent team turned to the cloud to boost their rendering capacity. Studio co-founder Jeff Bell, one of the developers behind the original Maya in the 1990s, built an in-house animation pipeline tool that was subsequently developed into Loupe.