Asset Repository WG - 8 Dec 2020

Attendees

[x] Michael Johnson (Apple) + WG Chair

[x] Joshua Minor (Pixar + OpenTimelineIO)

[x] John Mertic (Linux Foundation)

[x] Nick Porcino (OTIO, OpenEXR / Pixar)

[x] Eric Enderton (NVIDIA, DigiPro)

[x] Sean McDuffee (Intel)

[x] Eric Bourque (ADSK)

[x] Erik Hansen

[x] JT Nelson (Pasadena Open Source consortium / SoCal Blender group)

[x] Lee Kerley (SPI)

[x] Phil Sawicki (Autodesk)

[x] Roman Zulak (Imageworks)

• Options (from last week’s notes, with this week’s comments)
• a small, curated set of assets representative of the complexity of our members' work (i.e. ORCA) to use for verifying/testing
• for renderer authors, DCC vendors, etc
• a curated set of "best practice" assets aligned with our industry's needs (USD, HDR, etc.)
• takes time/money to smooth out and develop
• a curated set of "best practice" assets aligned with our projects needs (EXR, VDB, video footage, etc.)
• a badging system for discussing/endorsing approaches
• point to assets elsewhere
• certify “this is film complexity”, “this is a good camera rig”, etc
• “this is portable to X and Y renderers”
• “this was production complexity in 2020, but now in 2025 it isn’t anymore”
• Josh: List of exemplars (Moana etc) will draw out what we like and don’t like:  This is a good license / problematic license, this is renderable / not renderable, etc
• Represent ASWF projects. Not just 3D.
• What goes in proposal to TAC / Board?
• Value we want to provide
• Sketch of approach: hosting yes/no (but not details of where, structure, etc), etc
• What is our value add?
• Point out good/bad exemplars, what’s missing
• Hire artist to make asset more accessible, in limited cases
• Break down barriers to contribution
• OpenTimelineIO:  Do Netflix assets match OTIO needs?  Not quite, has footage but not cut info.  Pixar could submit cut, but hard to license footage.  How get both?  Best hope is Blender, maybe upcoming project would be best to ask.  Older projects might not have OTIO usable edits. Blender’s permissive licensing is attractive.
• Plant standards for next project
• USC ETC projects, again next project?
• Current project: https://www.rippleeffectfilm.com
• Live action could be nice - it’s not just for VFX - but who do we ask
• Takes hacks to get show out the door, that may not translate well to OTIO. But if they have spec, easy for them to make an OTIO version at the time while they’re in there.
• Put out a call?  If you’re a non-profit filmmaker, or if you’re a studio, and you have VDB, or you have edit list and could give us EXRs, … .
• Value add: Name brand. Academy is asking, rather than Pixar asking or random OSS dev asking.
• OpenCue: What would be the ask?
• OSL: 
• Contest? 
• EricE: I don’t want enthusiast OSL, I want studio OSL. 
• Wave: Educational and on-boarding examples.
• EricB: Hard shaders - ones that break compiler, or break perf.
• Are these regression tests, from bugs that got fixed?
• Ask the projects
• <= 64 channels?  10-20 AOVs?
• Deep EXRs - do they go into OpenEXR or into Asset Repo?
• Defer hosting discussion?  Not hardest thing.  And even if it’s a page of links, still valuable.
• Foreach ASWF project + USD as stand-in for 3D assets with materials:
• Ask what assets would be helpful
• Take that list to board: What could members provide, where are mismatches?
• Nick: Or start with OpenEXR’s list.
• EricE: My #1 is studio gets value from better software, that’s why they’re motivated to donate assets that are relevant to them
• Wave: Good articulation - my list has Best practices, Education closer to top.
• Nick: The list yields a matrix - which projects have which interests..
• EricE to write list, pass it around, Wave to take it to next OpenEXR meeting, see if it generates good requests and makes sense to them as an approach
• Josh: This fills in one row of the matrix.
• Wave: Don’t have to solve World Asset Hunger - ASWF is 6 projects.
• What does ASWF community want?