Impossible Objects, a pioneering virtual production company, needed its creative infrastructure to scale with fluctuating production demands without slowing down its artists. ASCENDING redesigned the studio's Perforce version control environment and layered in a serverless rendering solution on AWS Deadline Cloud, giving Impossible Objects a more efficient, scalable, and user-friendly production pipeline.
Background
Impossible Objects was seeking solutions to enhance the scalability, performance, and workflow efficiency of its creative processes as it took on increasingly demanding high-performance content production work. ASCENDING was engaged to resolve existing technical challenges and design a new, scalable infrastructure, with the project focused on optimizing digital asset management and assessing a serverless rendering solution built on AWS Deadline Cloud.
The Challenge
Impossible Objects' production pipeline was constrained by version control overhead, network performance, and a rendering setup that couldn't flex with demand.
- Version Control Issues: Artists used Perforce for version control, but the existing setup was time-consuming and required manual configuration on each artist's workstation.
- Network Latency: Slow network performance affected collaboration between remote artists, impacting overall production speed.
- Rendering Scalability: The existing on-premise rendering solution lacked the flexibility and scalability to handle fluctuating production demands.
Why ASCENDING
Impossible Objects needed a partner who could both modernize an entrenched creative tooling workflow and design cloud infrastructure capable of scaling rendering on demand. ASCENDING brought the AWS infrastructure expertise to redesign the studio's network architecture and integrate AWS Deadline Cloud, alongside the automation skills needed to eliminate the manual Perforce setup slowing artists down.
That combination of creative-pipeline familiarity and AWS cloud depth positioned ASCENDING to address both the version control and rendering challenges as part of one connected solution rather than two separate fixes.
The Solution
ASCENDING delivered a comprehensive solution addressing both Impossible Objects' Perforce environment and its rendering infrastructure.
- ASCENDING developed a PowerShell script that automated the setup of Perforce on artists' workstations, letting artists begin content creation immediately instead of configuring their environment manually.
- To resolve network latency, ASCENDING redesigned the architecture with a P4 Proxy setup, significantly reducing latency, improving collaboration between remote artists, and making the system more scalable for future growth.
- ASCENDING designed a serverless rendering solution using AWS Deadline Cloud, allowing rendering resources to scale automatically based on demand.
- Proper IAM roles were configured across the environment to ensure secure, role-based access to both the rendering and version control systems.
The Outcome
The new Perforce architecture and serverless rendering design transformed Impossible Objects' production capabilities, giving artists a faster, more collaborative, and more scalable environment to work in.
- Enhanced workflow efficiency, with artists able to start working faster thanks to the automated Perforce setup and significantly reduced setup time.
- Reduced network latency through the P4 Proxy setup, enabling smoother collaboration and content creation across remote locations.
- Gained a highly scalable, flexible rendering solution with AWS Deadline Cloud that dynamically adjusts to workload demands, optimizing performance while reducing cost.
- Established a more efficient, scalable, and user-friendly environment for Impossible Objects' ongoing creative processes.
