Pipeline: Application Plugins

Temerity Pipeline is build around a generic workflow framework which can launch any type of interactive application and execute jobs for any program or script that can be run from the command-line. Support for running third-party software is provided by several types of Java based plugins. These include Editor plugins for launching interactive applications to create or edit files, Comparator plugins for comparing versions of a file, Action plugins to run non-interactive jobs in the queue, Tool plugins to perform complex node operations and Archiver plugins to archive and restore file to offline media. Temerity Pipeline comes with a rich variety of plugins to support common tasks shared by most studios using industry standard tools. Support for more esoteric software or home grown proprietary software is easy to add using Temerity Pipeline's rich Java API. We can create any plugins needed by your studio or assist your in-house technical staff to provide support for any type of software. Think of Temerity Pipeline as a highly extensible production engineering platform which comes with a ton of functionality already, but can be adapted to suit any production methodology. We work closely with the major 3D and 2D software vendors to exploit the latest features of their applications when used with Temerity Pipeline. Here are some of the highlights:

Available Now:

Actions plugins for Autodesk Maya® perform Hardware, Software and Mental Ray® rendering with the ability to set nearly all render settings without needing to open the Maya scene. Other Action plugins support a flexible animation workflow using dynamic scene building from component model scenes and imported animation data. Actions which apply arbitrary MEL scripts can be used to run simulations, modify rendering layers or perform any other Maya scene modification possible using MEL. read more		Action plugins for Houdini include support for building Operator Type Libraries (OTLs) for VEX based operators and shaders. Houdini scenes can be dynamically constructed from any combination of HIP file, OTL and command script components. Action plugins exist for all Output operators including baked geometry export, animation clip generation, compositing and all supported renderers. Action plugins are also provided for useful Houdini utility programs such as image and geometry converters. read more

Actions plugins for Autodesk 3ds Max® include batch rendering with all supported renderers including Mental Ray®, VRay® and the 3dsmax scanline renderer. An Action is also provided for running arbitrary MAXScripts to dynamically generate or procedrually modify 3dsmax scenes. An Editor plugin provides the ability to launch 3dsmax from Pipeline to interactively edit scenes. read more		Support for assembling and rendering of (.mi) render input files using the mental ray® standalone renderer from mental images® is provided by a collection of Action plugins. These include an Action plugins providing fine grained export of mental ray cameras, shaders, geometry and other entities from a Maya scene. Generation of whole scene input files is provided by Action plugins for Maya and Houdini. read more

Action plugins for RenderMan® ProServer™ include support for batch rendering, RIB processing, texture/environment map building and shader compilation. Support for creating, processing and interactively inspecting 3D point clouds, photon maps and brick maps are provided by Action and Editor plugins. An Editor plugin for the "it" image tool is also included. read more		Action plugins for the AIR RenderMan® compliant renderer from SiTex Graphics include support for batch rendering, RIB processing, texture/environment map building, shader compilation and shader UI utilities. Texture maps containing baked shading and lighting information can be created using an Action plugin which runs BakeAIR. The AirShow image viewer is also supported by an Editor plugin. read more

Action plugins for the 3Delight™ RenderMan® compliant renderer include support for batch rendering, RIB processing, texture map building and shader compilation. High Dynamic Range (HDR) images and Deep Shadow Map (DSM) image utilities are also supported by Action plugins. An Editor plugins is provided for launching the I-Display image viewer as well. read more		Action plugings supporting rendering with the Gelato™ renderer which features GPU based hardware acceleration using nVidia® professional graphics cards. In addition to rendering, plugins are also provided for scene export, shader compilation and texture preprocessing. read more

Support for launching the Shake® UI and displaying image sequences are provided by Editor plugins. Differences between image versions can be displayed using a Comparator plugin. Batch compositing of Shake scripts is provided by an Action plugin. read more		Support for launching the Nuke™ UI and displaying image sequences are provided by Editor plugins. Batch network rendering is provided by an Action plugin. Tools and Action plugins for dynamically creating Nuke scripts are also included. read more

Editor plugins are provided to launch the component programs of the Adobe®Creative Suite 2 including Adobe Photoshop®CS2, Illustrator® CS2, InDesign® CS2 and Acrobat® 7.0 Professional on Mac OS X and Windows XP workstations. read more		Action plugins for Syflex which support the building of cache files for multi-stage simulation and rendering. Tool plugins will also be provided which setup the complex node networks needed to perform both parallel and serial cloth sims involving multiple characters and cloth layers. read more

OS Provided Utilities:

Action plugins are provided for executing arbitrary scripts for interpreters such as Bash, Csh, Perl and Python. Access to image conversion and compositing features of ImageMagick is provided by another Action plugin. A variety of text editors and document viewers are also provided. read more		The GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) is fully supported. GIMP can be launched interactively to create or edit images, used to compare the differences between versions of images or preform batch image processing using provided Editor, Comparator and Action plugins. read more

Beyond the support for Windows® by the Editor plugins for the major CG applications, Pipeline also has Editor plugins for many common 2D/3D tools, image viewers, text editors and document viewers which run on Windows. read more		The major CG applications which run on Mac OS X are already supported by the Editor plugins for those applications. In addition, Pipeline contains plugins for most of the built-in Mac OS X tools and many common image viewers, text editors and document viewers used by Mac users. read more

Available Soon:

Support for launching the Fusion™ 5 and displaying image sequences are provided by Editor plugins. Support for both Windows and Linux is included. Batch network rendering is provided by an Action plugin.		Action plugins for Massive include running agent simulations in batch mode, export of RIB files containing terrain geometry, agent animation, shadow pass and main camera information.

Action plugins for Softimage®\|XSI® provide a fine-grained modular approach to production where scenes can be deconstructed into models, rigging, animation, materials and render setup data which are independently versioned. These scene components can then be dynamically reassembled by Pipeline to suit needs of artists at different stages of the production process. Action plugins are also provided for running dynamics simulations and rendering.		Action plugins for the LiquidMaya open source RenderMan pipeline tool. Liquid is high performance RIB exporter for Maya which can be used with a variety of RenderMan based renderers including PRMan, AIR, 3Delight and Pixie. Action plugins are provided to provide control over the RIB exporting process using Liquid.

Action plugins provide support batch processing of RealFlow fluid dynamics simulations and mesh generation. Batch exporting of RealFlow scene description files (.sd) from both Maya® and Houdini are also provided by Action plugins. Launching of the RealFlow UI is provided by an Editor plugin. read more		In addition to batch rendering, supported Action plugins for the new Maxwell Renderer from NextLimit include the export of renderer input files from Maya® and complete control over all render settings from Pipeline without the need to open the Maya scene. read more

Maya® is a registered trademark of Alias Systems Corporation. mental ray™ is a trademark of mental images. Shake® and Mac OS® are registered tradmarks of Apple Computer Inc. Windows® is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corperation Adobe®, Photoshop®, Illustrator®, Insight®, Acrobat® and Acroread® are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems Inc. 3Delight™ is a trademark of The 3Delight Team. RenderMan® is a registered trademark of Pixar. RenderMan ProServer™, RenderMan Artist Tools™, MTOR™, Slim™ and "it"™ are trademarks of Pixar. Softimage® and XSI® are registered trademarks of Avid Technology, Inc.