LogInWe've found a great toolset for creatives who work remotely and would like to share today a couple of insights with you.
mudstack is the only asset management and collaboration platform custom-built for game studios and digital artists. It was created by Jordan Stevens, Nachiket Kumar, and Mark VanderBoom.
The founders are on a mission to "enable artists, reduce pain, and simplify digital art pipelines. We are here to revolutionize and disrupt the collaborative artistic process".
Recently a lot of studios have had to start working remotely due to the pandemic. Even though the game and art industries have been flexible with the changes, remote work still remains challenging.
Square Enix is the first major AAA studio to come out and announce that they’re planning to make their current Coronavirus working-from-home policies permanent.
Moon Studios call themselves a distributed development house and have been so since their inception.
Thomas Mahler, Moon Studios' head has talked openly about being able to poach top-tier talent from places like Blizzard, Riot, and Disney by saying: "Hey, we have a good salary, but the nice thing is that you can work from home".
There are several benefits to remote work for artists:
- The ability to work during your most productive hours.
- Better work/life balance.
- Opportunity to create your own workspace that will fit you better.
However, most remote art teams encounter several painful challenges— a lack of communication, delays in feedback, and a complicated hierarchy of files distributed in several locations.
"With remote teams, you may never really know if your team is fully aware of everything they should know, or if they truly understand why their idea was shot down due to time constraints. That is why it’s good to over-communicate," said Daniel Doan, Growth Marketing Consultant.
Benefits of mudstack:
Easy Mode
Allows you to tag, filter, search and sort the way you work so that you can find what you need— fast.
Visual search with high availability
With this feature, you can visually identify your assets and choose your favourites.
Organize assets your way and review them anytime
Texture libraries. Libraries for props. Libraries for models. Characters. Chairs. Spaceships.
Combined with tags, you have a powerful asset management system that is infinitely customizable for how you work.
Version control, built for artists
Finally, a version control system that doesn't make artists adopt developer workflows. Reduce your risk by adopting version control built for you.
Collaborate remotely and waste less work
Get asynchronous reviews early and often so you don't have to throw work away. Help your studio save time AND money.
"Remote collaboration has always been a significant challenge for artists— I experienced it first hand as a technical artist. So we're building mudstack to try and break down as many barriers as possible for artists and developers trying to work better together," said Jordan Stevens, CEO & Founder, mudstack
"With Mudstack, you have the potential to both see the art, AND look at the Art Director feedback that gives you guidance for the piece you're working on. In remote teams, feedback is everything but it's hard to convey (especially asynchronously). Having a history of how previous pieces got made is invaluable," said Mélanie Christin, CEO and Art Director, Atelier 801
You may check out the platform for free here.