Open Source Remote VFX - Open Firehawk and Stormborn Studios
Channel: Firehawk VFX
Date: 2019-07-30

No one likes to repeat labour. Something pretty amazing occurred working with Stormborn Studios Inc. recently to help with that problem.
We shared through #opensource the FX workflows in the openfirehawk repository which I used to produce work on the last two shows with Stormborn (of course no shot work was open sourced). 
This is a step to how I’d like to see further evolution in the #VFX industry-
A measurable duration of the contracts I’ve had in the past create unnecessary waste labour as I’ve repeatedly automated familiar workflows. The old school approach (which is currently the norm) should be recognised as something that does not reflect the reality of how ideas actually work for some of what we produce. I don’t think its easy to claim entire ownership over ideas we build things from because of their relationship to other ideas that aren’t our own, and contracts that don’t acknowledge the reality of workflow enhancement represent a system failure (see “everything is a remix”, especially the last episode). VFX companies and artists alike can benefit by doing this: it reduces waste labour, artists hit the ground running, and tools can continue to live and evolve to benefit a team long after an individual leaves.  
https://github.com/firehawkvfx/openfirehawk-houdini-tools

Admittedly lacking in documentation at this stage, the work is available under an open source Mozilla Public Licence 2.0.  I’ll be presenting some of the tools in the future, including workflows that use Side FX’s Procedural Dependency Graph (PDG).  I’m also hoping to present at SIGGRAPH Asia (Brisbane) in November. 
I wanted to credit the Qlib repository here too, which was an enabler for me as something that should really be done more when I met Imre Tuske at Weta Digital.