Dneg developing open source playback & review application
June 9, 2022

Dneg developing open source playback & review application

LONDON – VFX and animation studio Dneg has outlined plans for the upcoming launch of xStudio (www.dneg.com/xstudio), its flexible and feature-rich playback and review application. Currently in development at Dneg, xStudio is designed to replace all other image review tools across the studio’s content creation pipeline, allowing individuals and teams to review shots, edits and grades in a single, unified application on all desktop platforms and operating systems, including Linux, Mac and Windows.
 
Dneg intends to publish xStudio as an open-source project, allowing industry partners and filmmaking teams to integrate the application into their own pipelines, all while encouraging the adoption of the tool as a new industry-standard toolset for collaborative review.  

“From its conception, xStudio was designed to allow everyone working in the media creation industries to collaborate seamlessly,” explains Chas Jarrett, senior VFX supervisor at Dneg. “VFX supervisors, artists, directors, DPs, studio executives, producers - we all look at images every day in many different ways. XStudio will give us a common industry toolset for organizing and displaying all types of media, annotating and editing them, and then securely sharing the results with each other, on our laptops, in screening rooms or over the internet.”
 
The application is expected to launch later this year and will be available for free download and use. Partners can also contribute features and workflows to support their own specific needs.
 
“Our teams across the globe design, create, animate and submit thousands of visual effects shots and animation sequences across multiple projects every day,” notes Paul Salvini, global CTO at Dneg. “In xStudio we have created a modern, flexible, feature-rich playback and review application that we hope will become the new industry standard. By freely sharing xStudio as an open source project with our clients and our industry partners we are encouraging everyone to use and develop the toolset, so that we all benefit from the collective expertise in our community.”
 
XStudio will feature a modern, feature-rich and pipeline-agnostic core application, while also providing a full Python API, C++ plug-in framework and extensive use of open-source libraries to allow contributors full control of its integration into their pipelines.