Qube! now used to manage five animation and graphics labs
Honolulu, HI ? June 22, 2009 ? PipelineFX, makers of Qube!? software, the leading render farm management software for film and post production, broadcast graphics, game development, and digital media education around the world, today announced that Pratt Institute?s Department of Digital Arts has adopted Qube! to manage their render pipeline.
Brooklyn, New York-based Pratt Institute School of Art and Design offers a diverse range of degree offerings including art, architecture, fashion design, illustration, interior design, digital arts, creative writing, library science, and other areas. Enjoying a history of artistic accomplishment since its founding as the Department of Computer Graphics and Interactive Media in 1987, the Department of Digital Arts (formerly CGIM) is one of the first degree-granting programs in the digital arts.
Qube! has been used to manage Pratt's Department of Digital Arts student rendering for over four years. The school started with a single dedicated farm of 12 machines. "In the past, we have maintained a farm but it always consisted of less powerful machines and was not cost effective to keep up," said Rob O'Neill, Director of Digital Arts Research Laboratory at Pratt Institute. "We wanted to setup Qube! to take advantage of the powerful 8-core Mac Pro systems for Maya rendering in all our computer labs."
Pratt has expanded both their Qube! license count and their number of labs and machines being managed by and submitting jobs though Qube!. Since Qube! only requires a license to be purchased for a machine that is currently running a rendering job, schools and studios can submit jobs from every desktop without purchasing a license. Since all licenses are floating, only the desktops or labs that are available for rendering require the use of a license.
"Now that we have our entire five lab department running Qube we can schedule usage around class times, dedicate labs to rendering in the evenings, and upgrade the farm each academic year as we buy new systems," says Peter Patchen, Chair of the Department of Digital Arts at Pratt Institute. "It stays in step with our purchasing and in parallel with the systems our students are working on."
Since Qube! licenses are also available for rent online at
www.pipelinefx.com, Pratt can scale up on the fly should the need arise.
"For our students, Qube is making it possible to make the critical move to producing their projects in HD," noted Patchen. "It is also allowing them to make creative decisions after seeing final frames which in the past was not as possible. As soon as we had the farm up and running it was maxed out but we saw stunning results and expect a great year of work."
"Pratt was an early adopter of Qube! and has really leveraged the flexibility and power of our system," said Richard Lewis, VP of Sales for PipelineFX. "Most schools have idle CPU's at various times and until now it's been difficult to easily harness those spare cycles. Pratt is a great example of maximizing rendering power for students, allowing for more iterations or creative work even in the highest resolutions like HD."
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About Pratt Institute: Pratt Institute is a specialized private college in New York City with campuses in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Utica, New York. Pratt is one of the leading art schools in the United States and offers programs in Pratt is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD), a consortium of thirty-six leading art schools in the United States. Pratt provides one of the most comprehensive professional art and design educations available, supported by a distinguished faculty and exceptional technical and studio resources. Gifted students from across the United States and the world collaborate and learn at Pratt, weaving creative energy and opportunity into an unmatched educational experience. The faculty consists of professional artists, designers, critics, historians, and practitioners, including numerous recipients of prestigious awards such as the Tiffany, Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowships. The faculty?s works, projects, and publications are recognized and respected around the world. In addition to the outstanding curricula and faculty, the School of Art and Design offers a diverse range of degree offerings. School of Art and Design programs are also enriched by Pratt?s distinguished professional programs in architecture, all within the broader cultural campus of New York City. To learn more about applying to Pratt Institute, visit:
http://www.pratt.edu/admissions. For further information about Digital Arts at Pratt, contact:
ddaac@pratt.edu.
About Qube! and PipelineFX: Qube!? is the leading render farm management system for film production, visual effects, game development and digital media education. Qube! is highly customizable, extensively scalable, can be integrated into any production workflow, and is backed by world-class technical support. Qube! has custom pipelines for creative applications like Autodesk? 3ds Max?, Autodesk Maya?, NUKE?, SOFTIMAGE?|XSI?, Shake?, Adobe? AfterEffects?, Pixar?s RenderMan?, Eyeon? Digital Fusion? and many more. Qube! is IBM ServerProven?, database driven and operates in Linux?, Windows? and Mac OS?X environments. PipelineFX, with headquarters in Honolulu, Hawaii, and offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego, CA and Vancouver, B.C. was founded in 2002. Qube! is used by world-class film and game studios and post houses including South Park Studios, Electronic Arts, Digital Domain, Laika Studios, Rainmaker Animation, Starz Entertainment, Reel FX, MTV and ESPN. Qube! is used by schools around the world including the School of Visual Arts in N.Y., Goebelins School in Paris, FIT, Carleton School of Architecture, Full Sail, the University of Advancing Technology, Pratt Institute, the University of Hawaii-Academy for Creative Media, and Harvard?s Graduate School of Design. For more information, please contact Richard Lewis, VP of Sales of PipelineFX: richard@pipelinefx.com, Phone: 808-685-7823, 1000 Bishop Street, Suite 509, Honolulu, Hawaii, 96813, USA. Also visit
www.pipelinefx.com.
Trademark Notice: Qube!? and Qube! Remote Control? are trademarks of PipelineFX, LLC. All other trademarks are the property of the respective trademark owners. ?2009 PipelineFX, L.L.C
