Foundry has set the official launch of Athera, the new cloud-based VFX workflow platform that it first introduced as Elara (see our coverage) at NAB 2017, for FMX 2018, taking place this week in Stuttgart, Germany.
When it launches on April 26, Athera will give users on-demand, pay-as-you-go cloud-based access to tools including Foundry’s Nuke, Katana, Modo, Mari and Cara VR as well as V-Ray, Houdini and Blender, Foundry said. The tools would be accessed via web browser, where the actual software, project data and processing power reside, rather than downloaded to a client PC — that means that, given enough low-latency bandwidth to maintain a connection for streaming the UI from the cloud, the capabilities of the client system shouldn’t be an issue. Foundry said studios and artists will be able to request a trial at the Athera website, which redirects for the time being to Foundry’s main site.
The launch event at FMX will include live demonstrations of the platform as well as information about beta customers who have already been using it, including director and VFX Supervisor Hugo Guerra of Fire Without Smoke and CG Supervisor Patton Tunstall from ATK PLN.
Athera will be hosted on Google Cloud Platform, and has been audited for security by Independent Security Evaluators, a firm that has advised the MPAA and CDSA on application security, Foundry said.
Foundry Athera: athera.io
