Project management workflows

[stezza]

Hi folks.
As most pro users of VRay probably work on large projects within a studio managing large amounts of assets, how do you manage?

We are ever increasing in work load and projects are becoming very heavy with assets but we are currently working to find an appropriate work-flow for project management.

At the moment we are working to monthly and weekly sprints which are divided into tasks for that week, but what I want to find out is are there any appropriate software to help manage what's to be done and what has been completed for the whole studio to use.

Would be great to hear what experience others have in this area.

Many thanks

[Yannick]

Microsoft project is good.
If you want something oriented to vfx then Shotgun is very good (http://www.shotgunsoftware.com/) but pricey.
I think Nexus (http://vfxnexus.com/) is the next big one.

[stezza]

Thanks Yannick
That Shotgun software looks to be perfect for us, lets see what the management think!
Thanks for your pointers we have started using Trac http://trac.edgewall.org which is free and open source, but I think we need something more visual based.

Cheers

[Yannick]

Glad to help. Shotgun is great as it should do everything you need but the cost per month and per users is a bit pricey. Also check that you can have an offline version. I can't remember if it is Shotgun or another software that only offer online version, which can be a problem with sensitive data.

[shadevfx]

Ive always found it cheaper and far more versatile to have someone custom code a shot tracker in house... just a thought, but if you have a TD on hand or someone familiar with databases, it's not that complicated to have done.

[throb]

Ive always found it cheaper and far more versatile to have someone custom code a shot tracker in house... just a thought, but if you have a TD on hand or someone familiar with databases, it's not that complicated to have done.

I can see where you're coming from but at $89/user/month for api access, hiring a programmer at 80-150k/year is not as cost effective. Also if that person quits you may be in a spot of trouble.
I have managed several shows using shotgun now and I can say it's fantastic and the support is also stellar.

Rob

[pg1]

I haven't tried it but this looks like it could be useful and best of all its freeeeee! http://www.projectfork.net/

[shadevfx]

I can see where you're coming from but at $89/user/month for api access, hiring a programmer at 80-150k/year is not as cost effective. Also if that person quits you may be in a spot of trouble.
I have managed several shows using shotgun now and I can say it's fantastic and the support is also stellar.

Rob

But dont you need someone to set it up and make that API access worthwhile? Just playing devils advocate, but my brief experience with shotgun was that I'd need a TD to hook it up into all our other tools to make it really useful.