PipelineFX has announced that its Qube render farm management software has been added to BioWare's development pipeline to support content production efficiency in Dragon Age and other next generation game development.
Qube’s features include cross-platform support, fully exposed C++, Perl and Python APIs, client-server architecture for scalability, global resource tracking, stable MySQL database backend for data retention and production tracking, floating shared license management to maximize use of servers and desktops, and customizable job dependencies and priorities to handle complex asset dependencies.
Qube ships with an array of custom jobtypes for 2D and 3D applications, including Maya, 3ds Max and others. Each jobtype contains a submission GUI integrated into the application itself, a submission form for the queue management GUI, a command line submission tool, and a backend execution module specifically developed to interface directly with the application.
The custom jobtypes are aimed at simplifying job submission and reducing the time for integrating internal production pipelines with Qube by including ready-made interfaces and execution backends. Most recently, PipelineFX added the Maya 2008 jobtype to Qube.
Dragon Age principal programmer Peter Woytiuk of BioWare explained, "We chose Qube due to its proven track record. Due to the excellent support we received during the evaluation, we were able to integrate Qube into our pipeline in less than a week and immediately started seeing results. Qube has given our artists more time to produce and iterate on content, which is key to creating the next generation of BioWare games.”
