Industry Vets Launch Artella Collaborative Animation Platform

The market for cloud-based collaborative animation platforms got a little more crowded this week with the launch of Artella, a new online production pipeline devised by the trio of animators (veterans of Pixar, Paramount and ILM) who founded Animation Mentor in 2005.

Founders Bobby Beck, Carlos Baena and Shawn Kelly say the new browser-based platform will allow virtual studios to form creative teams — writers, directors, animators, storyboarders, software engineers — made up of personnel from various global locations who work together online. That means students emerging from Animation Mentor’s e-learning program, for instance, would be able to work in collaboration with other students, and potentially connect with established studios to take a role in larger projects.

The platform incorporates file management and project review tools developed for production of films, games, and VR content. And Artella is designed to integrate with industry standard production software — the announcement names Autodesk Maya, Adobe Premiere Pro and Photoshop, and The Foundry’s Nuke — and allow collaborators to work either online or offline. The first 90 days on Artella’s platform will be free, with a $10-$30 monthly subscription fee per seat afterward, the company said.

The world is full of talented creative people who have the tools in their home to make great content, but lack the professional network,” said Beck in a prepared statement. “We simply wanted to find a way to bring them together from anywhere in the world and to give way to a new form of collaborative production studio.” The company’s board of directors includes Oculus Story Studio’s Max Planck and Adobe’s Stefano Corazza Sr., a spokesperson said.

A similar platform is under development by Nimble Collective, which wants to provide a similar collaborative pipeline allowing artists to work in the cloud. (See StudioDaily’s previous coverage.) But while Nimble has floated the idea of collecting something akin to an agency’s fee on content created using its platform, Artella stressed that it has no plans to assert any kind of financial interest in projects created using its technology.