The document describes the animation workflow process at a visual effects company. It involves animators working with scenes, publishing their work, getting reviews from other animators and directors, and rendering quality check videos. Issues arose from changes between publishes causing bad outputs and render failures, wasting time. To solve this, a pre-publish process was implemented to sync the render recipe with each scene's contents, reducing variability and repetitions in the workflow and cutting down process time and overtime.

1. Feature Animation
Visual Effects As A Job
Shop @

2. Input: Scripts, Storyboards, and Sound

3. Outputs: Image Sequences

4. Process Overview
Rough
Layout
Character
Animation
Final Layout
Modeling
Rigging
Pipeline
Front End
Editorial
Approved
Concept Art
Editorial
Lighting
Final
Render
Cloth & Hair
FX (Particles,
Smoke, Etc)
Texturing Look Dev
Back End

5. Objectives
Reduce Flow Time
Low Variability
Maintain Quality

6. Yikes…
Rough
Layout
Character
Animation
Final Layout
Modeling
Rigging
Pipeline
Front End
Editorial
Approved
Concept Art
Editorial
Lighting
Final
Render
Cloth & Hair
FX (Particles,
Smoke, Etc)
Texturing Look Dev
Back End

8. Animator’s Working View
• Fast
• Manipulate in real-time

9. • Smooth
• Check contact points
• Check motion blur
• See details
• Check quality of
conversion to lighting
format
Animator (and Director) Quality Check Render

10. d
Zooming In: The Animation Workflow
Animator Works
with Scene
Publishing
Animator
Review
Director Review
QC Render (Video File)
Good?
No Yes
Good?
YesNo
ANIMATION

11. Two Publish Problems: Render “Death” and
Bad Output
Animator Works
with Scene
Publishing
Animator
Review
Director Review
QC Render (Video File)
Good?
No Yes
Good?
YesNo
Death:
• Often from new assets (rigs, props)
that had never been published
• Scenes that had a technical glitch
• Required Pipeline TD intervention
and can take days to track down
• Relatively rare
Bad Output:
• Often result of changes to props
(removed or renamed props)
between publishes
• Generally easy to fix
• Very common

12. Problem: The Render Recipe was Cumulative

13. d
Repetition Due to Variation in Publishing
Output
Animator Works
with Scene
Publishing
Animator
Review
Director Review
QC Render (Video File)
Good?
No Yes
Good?
YesNo
ANIMATION

14. New Process Variability
Publishing Output Quality Low
Original Process Variability
Specification Width
First Render
Second Render
Final Render

15. The Fix: A Recipe Syncing Pre-Process
PublishingPublished Scene File
Publish Pre-
process
Existing
Recipe
Check and update based on
scene contents

16. New Process Variability
New Publishing Variability
Specification Width

17. Result
Reduced repetitions of render cycle
Reduced overall process time
Cut down on overtime (Saturday) work

18. Takeaways
• There are workflows inside of large
processes
• Quality / bottleneck issues within
workflows impact overall quality and
flow time
• Get employees on the front line
involved to unpack workflows within
processes