Flow Production Tracking - DIGITAL PRODUCTION https://digitalproduction.com Magazine for Digital Media Production Wed, 11 Mar 2026 08:53:02 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://i0.wp.com/digitalproduction.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/cropped-dp-logo-kurz-weiss-auf-schwarz.png?fit=32%2C32&quality=72&ssl=1 Flow Production Tracking - DIGITAL PRODUCTION https://digitalproduction.com 32 32 236729828 On a Mission: Creating “NO ONE’S LIGHT” https://digitalproduction.com/2026/03/11/on-a-mission-creating-no-ones-light/ Wed, 11 Mar 2026 07:00:00 +0000 https://digitalproduction.com/?p=254234 A character in a dark cavern gazes at a glowing, crystalline creature resembling a serpent. The blue-lit environment sparkles with tiny lights, creating an otherworldly atmosphere.

No One’s Light is what happens when you start with 50 sci-fi ideas, delete 47 of them for survival reasons, and end up with a five-minute animated short that still looks like an alien planet got a proper art department. Blender handles the world building and Geometry Nodes chaos, CloudRig keeps characters bendy instead of broken, and Nuke ties it together before final grading at HFF München.

The post On a Mission: Creating “NO ONE’S LIGHT” first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

]]> A character in a dark cavern gazes at a glowing, crystalline creature resembling a serpent. The blue-lit environment sparkles with tiny lights, creating an otherworldly atmosphere.
A digital poster of an animated film titled 'No One's Light'. It features an astronaut with a helmet and a hopeful expression, reaching out to touch glowing particles in a dark, space-like environment.

Three first-semester students, one task to develop an animated short film and immense ambition – that’s where the first steps of “No One’s Light” headed off from in autumn 2024. Over the next 12 months, another animated first-year film at HFF München came to life, helping us VFX students develop filmmaking skills hands-on.

by Michael Powers, Christoph Schmidt, Julia Zenk

Finding an idea

The first step in creating our animated movie was to develop a story and concepts. The freedom to create a fully animated short film opened up limitless possibilities in the visuals, so we already knew we wanted to stick with genres that take advantage of this: fantasy and science fiction. Together, we gathered about 50 possible ideas, ranging from time travel to epic worlds of dragons and aliens. But amongst those, one story particularly stood out above the rest for us: an interstellar worker exploring a planet that comes to life at night.

A monochrome sketch featuring various scenes: a woman in distress, two characters in futuristic outfits, an advanced vehicle, and a mysterious blue object. Illustrations depict a blend of technology and emotional themes in a sci-fi setting.

We started this project with an ambitious approach. Ideas ranged from the main character initially encountering numerous alien offspring and their mother, to setting up a giant main base for the corporation our main character is working for. Lots and lots of characters, assets and settings. We began asking ourselves whether all these elements were necessary for our plot and whether we could find a more efficient way to tell a story.

A silhouette of a person in profile against a dark background, illuminated by soft blue light, evoking a sense of introspection and calm.

With the help of our lecturers, Prof. Jürgen Schopper, Dr Rodolfo Anes Silveira, and Berter Orpak, we worked to reduce the number of characters and places while keeping the most important plot elements for a concise story. This helped us to focus on learning new skills within an efficient framework. Especially because it needed to be simple and easy to understand within 5 minutes. Eventually, we figured out the only three components we needed for the story to work: an astronaut on a mission, an alien baby creature, and intergalactic planet landscapes. That way, we had more time to focus on the next steps while still following a solid story flow. During this stage, our producer Leonhard Schmid, who is currently studying production at HFF München, hopped on board to support us with administrative tasks.

A silhouetted figure stands on a rocky landscape under a starry night sky, gazing at two large crescent moons and wispy clouds, with dark twisted trees framing the scene.

A world, far, far away

Creating a fantastic world with original characters, while all fitting together in one look was a major task we were facing. First up, the planet – the environment our whole story is set in. How could we create otherworldly landscapes that are distinct from a familiar earthly look? Our main inspiration was underwater landscapes, such as coral reefs and deep-sea creatures, environments that fit well with science fiction designs.

A digital collage featuring a variety of images and visual elements. Includes photographs, illustrations, and graphics arranged in a chaotic yet organized layout, creating a diverse visual storyboard.

This way, we could give our planet a distinctly otherworldly appearance, centred around bioluminescence as the core aesthetic. Flowers and creatures glow in the dark, bringing the planet to life at night and reinforcing its alien nature.

Concept art of a fantastical creature, featuring a segmented body covered in dark blue and green foliage, glowing softly. The design showcases various angles, highlighting its vibrant, bioluminescent features and intricate textures.

The main plant that incubates the alien eggs was particularly difficult to find. It needed to read clearly as a plant while avoiding any direct resemblance to recognisable Earth species. At the same time, we wanted to prevent the design from immediately revealing that the “fruit” inside it was actually a living creature. The smaller plants that grow from falling seeds were not modelled; instead, they were created in Blender’s geo nodes, allowing us to easily fill the landscape with them.

A detailed flowchart displayed on a dark background, illustrating various processes and features. Diagrams and annotations connect different sections, filled with text boxes and arrows indicating relationships and workflows.

The geo nodes system for the plants consists of multiple stages. These are the spores, seeds, which are not seen, and the plants themselves. For organisational purposes, each stage is a separate object containing the node tree. Control groups were used to make, for example, the planet’s surface easily available across multiple node trees and smoothly exchange data between stages.

A stylized landscape featuring swirling rock formations under a starry night sky. Bioluminescent plants and mushrooms dot the ground, casting a soft glow in the dim environment, creating an otherworldly atmosphere.

The spores are emitted in a spherical volume around the creature and are simulated with a simple constant downward velocity and some noise. Once the distance between a particle and the ground gets sufficiently small, it stops moving and stores the elapsed time in frames since it hit the ground.

A complex flowchart illustrating a process in a dark background, featuring nodes labeled with functions like "Calculate distance to growing spheres" and "Edit seed distribution," connected by various lines and arrows.

In the next stage, points are distributed across the ground. Through proximity to certain control meshes, the density is art-directable. As a next step, all spores that hit the ground are brought in. Then invisible growing spheres are instanced and realised on those points, with their size corresponding to the elapsed time since the particle hit the ground. In a simulation zone, the seed points are set to “activate growth” (growthTrue) if they are in a certain range of the expanding spheres. If a seed’s growth has been activated, the growth factor will begin to accumulate.

A vibrant landscape illuminated by glowing flowers in shades of blue, pink, and purple, with rolling hills in the background under a dark sky, creating a magical and surreal atmosphere.

In the last stage, curves with random length are instanced on the seed points. They are displaced such that the curve tangent points in the normal direction of the planet’s surface near the root and points straight up near the tip. After that animated noise is applied, and the curves are trimmed based on the growth factor. Finally, data such as the spline factor and a random float for each plant are stored for use in the Material.

Although variation in length and thickness is evident in the plants, they do look quite similar. So to avoid the image feeling cluttered and noisy, especially in the wide landscape shot, we made use of a shallow depth of field, rendered in engine, as well as shifting the hue and brightness of further away plants slightly. This way, the overgrown bioluminescent aesthetic was maintained while keeping the image readable.

A diagram displaying a flowchart related to software development, featuring labeled blocks like 'Store current pos', 'Store MDP', 'Particle Solution', and 'Age' connected by arrows on a black background.

Another challenge was designing the main character, Aamu. Here, we were faced with some unexpectedly tricky questions: What kind of helmet should she wear? Should she wear one at all? Should she be able to take it off? Will the environment reflect in her visor?

An illustrated portrait of a person with short dark hair, eyes closed, wearing a light hoodie. Butterflies with glowing outlines rest in their hair and around them, set against a deep blue night sky dotted with faint stars.

Each of these decisions influenced not only her final appearance, but also the types of scenes we could realistically include in the film. We put a lot of emphasis on Aamu’s design, as she appears in the majority of shots and thus carries a lot of visual weight in the film. Regarding the latter of the questions above, in the end, we even made use of the reflective visor as an active element of our storytelling (see image)

A character in an interplanetary safety suit with a helmet, gloves, and utility belt. The suit features orange and white accents, along with dark trousers and boots. The background transitions from light to dark. The style is illustrative, emphasizing the futuristic design.
A detailed illustration of a futuristic container carrier ship, featuring a sleek design with orange and gray panels. A human figure stands beside it for scale on a grid background, showcasing the ship's size and structure.
Character design featuring a female astronaut in a space suit with a unique pattern. The design includes a full-body view, detail shots of her face, and a close-up of her helmet. Soft color palette with a mix of browns and whites.

Tied closely to the astronaut’s role in the story was the canister she used to collect the eggs. Early designs featured a large spike that would impale the targets. Given that it is later revealed that these eggs contain living animals, we deemed this approach a little too violent and opted for a grabber-style design instead. To further emphasise the corporate nature of the energy-collecting company behind the mission, we deliberately branded both the canister and the astronaut’s suit with the company’s logo.

A close-up view of a young person wearing a futuristic helmet with a light, looking intently at something in an ethereal blue environment. Their expression conveys curiosity and wonder against a dark backdrop speckled with stars.
A close-up of a young astronaut's face showing surprise or concern, with a reflective helmet visor partially obscuring their features. The background features a gradient of deep blue and black, suggesting an outer space environment.
A close-up of an animated astronaut's face, illuminated by a soft red glow, with an expression of wonder and curiosity. The helmet features intricate patterns of light, set against a dark, starry backdrop.

The alien creature’s design was closely tied to the plant it originated from. We wanted this relationship to be immediately understandable to the audience, which led to the idea of having the creature carry its own egg as part of its body. In keeping with our underwater concept, the main inspirations here were crabs, moths, and other insects.

Two whimsical animated characters in a stylized design. The left character has a dragonfly-like appearance with translucent wings and a playful stance, while the right character sits upright, showcasing bright eyes and a rounded body shape.
A collection of sketches depicting a futuristic insect-like creature with translucent wings and glowing blue eyes, shown in various poses and angles, against a muted gray background.

Kicking off the plot

Before we began actively working on our film, we did not forget an important foundation for the project: organising all the shots and assets to ensure an overview of every task at all times. Our VFX production professor, Sinje Gebauer, shared valuable insights from the VFX industry and tips on structuring the project in the pipeline database, Flow. This helped us immensely in keeping track of all the versions and noting down feedback.

A stylized animation storyboard showing various scenes of characters, blending muted colors and highlights of glowing blue plants in a dark environment. One main character stands on a rock amid ethereal flora.

In conjunction with Flow, we used Prism as our main pipeline tool for folder organisation and file versioning. The default file structure, previously set up by our Pipeline TDs Jonas Kluger and Wilfried Pollan, met our file management needs. Closer towards the end of the project, we manually added folders for handovers to sound, grading and mastering.

A monochromatic landscape featuring wavy rock formations with layered textures. The scene includes a prominent archway in the middle ground and smooth boulders scattered on the ground, suggesting a serene natural environment.

Throughout the visualisation of the story, we worked closely with our lecturers and test audiences to make iterations. We wanted to leave the story’s ending a little open, letting the audience interpret what might happen to the astronaut after her decision to delete the planet from the database.

Before we could begin animating the astronaut and the alien, we first had to create a rig – a skeleton underneath the model that allows us to move the character. For all our character rigs, we used the Blender Tool CloudRig, which was developed by Demeter Dzadik and introduced to us by him. The surfaces were painted using Substance Painter.

A dark, atmospheric landscape featuring towering rock formations with wavy textures. The scene is illuminated by a faint, mystical light in the background, highlighting the contours of the rocks and creating a sense of depth and mystery.

For the astronaut main character, it was important to have a smooth IK/FK switch given her frequent interactions with her container-harvesting tool. This was most important when she inserts it into the storage space. CloudRig helped a lot, as it comes with a very reliable, user-friendly system for IK/FK switching.

When it comes to our alien creature, it is mostly moving around by flying. For the flapping of the wings we used the sine wave generator in the f-curve modifiers in Blender.

A dark, surreal landscape showcasing layered rocky formations illuminated by bright blue lines and dots. The sky is partly cloudy, adding a mysterious atmosphere to the scene.

Since we had the constraint of a 12-month student production, we could not spend ages refining the animation, which is why, on some shots, we skipped blockout with constant interpolation and jumped straight into splining.

A vast, dark landscape under a night sky filled with swirling purple and blue clouds, dotted with twinkling stars, creating a serene and ethereal atmosphere.

As our team consists of passionate animators, we decided to animate every character manually with keyframes. Nevertheless, credible movements were highly important to us, so we hired professional actress Franzi Frey to reenact all stages of our main character’s journey for animation references. With the help of our lecturer David Emmenlauer, we also ventured in motion capture technology by XSense and recording movements, in case of needing to rely on those as a fall-back option.

Additional sessions with our animation lecturer, Prof. Melanie Beisswenger, improved our shots immensely with valuable feedback on what our characters are moved by, how they would express their emotions, and what credible movements are in each situation. All these steps helped us learn to apply the principles of animation in 3D software.

A digital interface displaying a glowing orange sphere labeled 'Energy Source' and a stylized outline of a blue crystal. A connect-the-dots line leads to a canister illustration, with annotations indicating 'CRYSTAL' and 'CANISTER.'

Compositing & Finishing

While most of our 3D work up until this point was done in Blender, one of the last steps in our pipeline – compositing – was happening in Nuke. Martin Tallosy introduced us to the program with industry expertise. In the compositing stage, we adapted all scenes to match a consistent appearance and added final touches for a cinematic look. The in-house grading in HFF München polished the final look of our film, thanks to Claudia Fuchs.

An animated character with short hair and a helmet is holding a futuristic device, looking intently at something off-screen. The background features dark rocky formations and a glowing atmosphere, adding to the sci-fi theme.

We rendered several passes out of Blender for use in Nuke. In addition to the ZDepth, position, diffuse and glossy light and colour, emission, environment, and ambient occlusion were included in the .exr sequences. This made the image sequences’ file size quite large, but allowed us a lot of control in compositing. Especially, the ZDepth was used on multiple occasions for depth of field. Furthermore, a combination of ZDepth and the Z component of the position gave a very nice, convincing impression of lingering mist.

A stylized black-and-white landscape featuring rolling hills and silhouettes of jagged mountains in a dark, misty atmosphere. Sparse grass and stick-like vegetation are visible in the foreground, creating a stark, dramatic scene.

We used ACES for rendering and compositing to ensure consistency across the final stages. In compositing, we always rendered mattes for the character and creature. Almost no colour correction was done in comp.

Issues in grading mainly stemmed from us discovering technical issues with the render. While working on the film in a fully lit room, we spotted a couple of errors (such as flickering or corrupted geometry), as soon as we saw it on a big cinema screen in the dark in-house grading room for the first time. This resulted in a couple of iteration loops until we could use the final renders for grading.

A character wearing a futuristic outfit stands in a vibrant, blue-themed environment, holding a cylindrical object. The setting features twisted formations and glowing orbs in the background, creating an underwater or sci-fi atmosphere.

During the final grading sessions, Claudia contributed significantly to the film’s visual success. She showed us how the story could be emphasised greatly with colour, emphasising stark reds and oranges associated with the corporation and contrasting them with the cool teals and blues of the planet. Furthermore, she ensured those colour statements were consistent across all the shots.

While movies contain a lot of work for the final images, we also need to mention our supporting team, which contributed to the audio and thus, brought a final touch to make our story come alive.

A person in a blue suit stands in front of a large illuminated wall with multiple circular lights arranged in rows. The lights are framed in orange, creating a vibrant and striking visual display.

Our music was written by composer Fabiola Wörter, a recent graduate of the University of Music and Theatre, who added to the otherworldly feeling with a captivating soundtrack. The whole score carries the story and pushes the audience even deeper into an otherworldly adventure. Our sound design was created by Stefan Möhl of HFF München, who helped us find the right sounds for an alien planet. Who would have guessed that small aliens sound exactly like capuchin monkeys?

A whimsical, animated creature with large glowing eyes and soft features, holding a small object, stands on a textured surface. The background is an otherworldly scene with soft blue lighting and ethereal shapes.

Final Thoughts

All in all, we are very happy with our journey that created “No One’s Light” – we learned to work efficiently within a team structure, acquired a new skill set at each stage, and now have a short film to show for it. As our main character Aamu finds out the strength of personal choice and the beauty within the unknown, we hope to inspire many viewers of our film!

The film is now in submission for several festivals and events, with pending responses. Once there is an update, we are happy to share upcoming screening dates on our film’s Instagram account.

A fantastical landscape filled with luminous, glowing floral forms in shades of blue, pink, and purple. The scene features softly illuminated hills and valleys under a starry night sky, creating a dreamlike atmosphere.

The full Team of “No Ones Light”

Script · Concept Art · Modelling  
Texturing ·  Rigging ·  Animation · Compositing 		Michael Powers
Christoph Schmidt  
Julia Zenk
Producer Leonhard Schmid 
Music Fabiola Wörter
 Voice & Reference Acting Aamu Franzi Frey 
Project Supervision Prof. Jürgen Schopper 
Project Consultant Dr. Rodolfo Anes Silveira 
VFX Producing Supervisor Prof. Sinje Gebauer 
Visual Effects Pipeline TD Jonas Kluger  
Wilfried Pollan 
Mentor 3D Animation Berter Orpak 
Mentor Compositing Martin Tallosy 
Line Producer Ina Mikkat 
Team Assistant to Line Producer Ron Sikkes 
Team Assistant Petra Hereth 
Editing Consultant Prof. Beatrice Babin 
Prof. Michael Palm 
Yuval Tzafrir
Color Grading Claudia Fuchs 
Rerecording Mixer & Sound Designer Stefan Möhl 
Postproduction Supervisor Christoffer Kempel 
Scheduling Beate Bialas 
Sabina Kannewischer 
Editing Support Christine Schorr 
Yuval Tzafrir 
Technical Support Benedikt Geß 
Florian Schneeweiß 
Rental HFF Munich Rainer Christoph 
Boris Levine 
Studio Management Peter Gottschall 
Andreas Beckert 
Conforming Aaron Kuder 
TutorsProf. Melanie Beisswenger, Prof. Michael Coldewey, Demeter Dzadik, David Emmenlauer, Kathrin Hawelka, Benc Orpak, Dr. Walter Stehling 

The post On a Mission: Creating “NO ONE’S LIGHT” first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

]]> DIGITAL PRODUCTION 254234 HFF Munich Hiring: Two Half-Time Heroes Wanted https://digitalproduction.com/2025/10/16/hff-munich-hiring-two-half-time-heroes-wanted/ Thu, 16 Oct 2025 12:04:55 +0000 https://digitalproduction.com/?p=213961 A person seated at a control panel in a darkened room, facing a large screen displaying the words 'PICTURE START.' Surrounding monitors show technical data and visuals related to film production.

HFF Munich’s VFX department wants two new tech minds—one for the pipeline, one for IT. Expect creative chaos, cool people, and excellent surroundings!

The post HFF Munich Hiring: Two Half-Time Heroes Wanted first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

]]> A person seated at a control panel in a darkened room, facing a large screen displaying the words 'PICTURE START.' Surrounding monitors show technical data and visuals related to film production.
Logo of the Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film München, featuring the institution's name in white text on a black background with a stylized representation of the acronym 'HFF'.

The Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film München (HFF Munich) is opening its VFX lab doors to two new technically minded colleagues. Under the direction of Professor Jürgen Schopper, the school’s Department of Visual Effects is looking to strengthen its Visual Effects section with a Pipeline Technical Director (m/f/d) and an IT Administrator (m/f/d), each on a permanent 50 % contract, roughly 20 hours per week. Both roles sit at the intersection of art, code, and education. The work environment? Half lab, half film set, and fully embedded in one of Europe’s most respected and vibrant film schools.

A person seated at a control panel in a darkened room, facing a large screen displaying the words 'PICTURE START.' Surrounding monitors show technical data and visuals related to film production.
HFF & Simon Weber 2015

Role 1: Pipeline Technical Director

The Pipeline TD position focuses on keeping the school’s VFX and animation workflows smooth, consistent, and sane. The system is currently based on Prism and Flow Production Tracking, and needs ongoing optimisation and documentation.

The role includes maintaining the renderfarm, refining asset management and data structures, and advising on industry standards like colour management and data formats. Candidates should have experience with Houdini, Maya, Nuke, or Blender, as well as strong Python scripting skills.

A plus: curiosity about AI-based automation and machine-learning-assisted workflows. The school explicitly welcomes candidates ready to experiment with AI integration, within reason and good documentation.

HFF München Job Posting: Pipeline Technical Director (m/w/d)

Role 2: IT Administrator

The IT Administration role keeps the digital backbone of the VFX section running. The school’s setup is mostly Windows-based, with a Linux backend, and hardware that’s no older than five years.

Responsibilities include system maintenance, automation, hardware and software procurement, and implementing new technologies that might benefit students or teaching staff. Basic AI and ML familiarity is considered a nice-to-have, not a deal-breaker.

Applicants should bring experience in system administration, automation, and hardware management, and ideally some experience in creative or academic environments.

HFF München Job Posting: IT-Administration und technische Betreuung (m/w/d)

A woman with her back to the camera sits at a desk, studying a large book, in a modern library. Natural light streams through large windows, illuminating the shelves filled with books and a person seated in the background.

Shared Benefits

Both jobs come with the same offer: a permanent 50 % position (20 hours per week), TV-L pay scale up to E10, flexible working hours, and the option of mobile work. The HFF campus sits in Munich’s Kunstareal, surrounded by museums, artists, and surprisingly reliable Wi-Fi.

There’s also a staff canteen, excellent public transport connections, and parking. Applications are open until 2 November 2025, and must be submitted via the HFF job portal.

For technical questions, contact Prof. Sinje Gebauer at vfx@hff-muc.de. For administrative questions, Juliane Kretschmer at j.kretschmer@hff-muc.de.

Fine Print and Fairness

As a public art university of the Free State of Bavaria, the HFF emphasises diversity, inclusion, and equal opportunity. Applicants with disabilities will be given preference when equally qualified. All genders and backgrounds are encouraged to apply.

Editorial P.S.

If you end up working with Jürgen, Peter, Rodolfo, Sinje, Petra, and the rest of the HFF crew, congratulations, you’ll have joined one of the friendliest and most capable VFX teams around.

Also, a word on the locality: the HFF sits right above Munich’s Egyptian Museum. That means, uniquely in the world, you can tell that your render failed due to the pharaoh’s curse.

And, another little P.S.: Munich is celebrating the “Long Night Of The Museums” on Saturday, 18th of October. You can just go to the HFF, have a look around, and get a feel for the place. And watch the amazing works of the Students in one of the cinemas!

The post HFF Munich Hiring: Two Half-Time Heroes Wanted first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

]]> DIGITAL PRODUCTION HFF & Simon Weber 2015 213961 RV 2025: Onion Skin, Live Review, ARM Macs https://digitalproduction.com/2025/09/08/rv-2025-onion-skin-live-review-arm-macs/ Mon, 08 Sep 2025 07:14:11 +0000 https://digitalproduction.com/?p=199626 The Golden Gate Bridge stands majestically over the bay, framed by rolling hills. Clouds drift across a bright sky, casting soft shadows on the water's surface. The iconic red structure contrasts against the earthy tones of the landscape.

RV 2025 arrives with Live Review (Beta), ARM64 macOS support, and onion skin annotations.

The post RV 2025: Onion Skin, Live Review, ARM Macs first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

]]> The Golden Gate Bridge stands majestically over the bay, framed by rolling hills. Clouds drift across a bright sky, casting soft shadows on the water's surface. The iconic red structure contrasts against the earthy tones of the landscape.

Autodesk has released RV 2025.0.0, the latest version of its playback and review tool, used widely in VFX and animation pipelines. The update was published on 5 September 2025 and is available for download now.

The new build introduces a Live Review workflow, currently in Beta, extending RV’s integration with the Creative Review web app. Artists can now join sessions hosted in Creative Review. The presenter gains the ability to mute all participants, while individuals can mute their own audio on entry. Automatic timeline annotation markers are always enabled when Creative Review runs the session, making collaborative feedback more consistent.

ARM Macs, onion skins, and high DPI

RV 2025 now runs natively on Apple Silicon ARM64 Macs and is compatible with macOS Sequoia 15.5. Hardware decoding for ProRes on ARM64 is also included, which should improve playback performance for studios handling Apple-native media.

Annotation tools have gained Hold and Ghost functions, also known as onion skinning, which allow users to compare drawings across frames. The annotation menu also includes a new option to clear all notes from the timeline in one action.

High DPI display support has been introduced for both macOS and Linux. However, Windows remains restricted due to instability with Qt 6.5.3. Autodesk notes that users can manually enable high DPI support on Windows via an environment variable, although the company does not guarantee stable results. If issues arise, a second variable is available to disable high DPI support entirely.

Playback, codecs, and pipelines

RV 2025 extends playback features by adding support for multiple media representations when loading OpenTimelineIO files. The Screening Room can now extend or override the list of available media representations, making it more flexible for studios that manage multiple deliverables.

For hardware outputs, Autodesk has added 120 Hz SDI output timing for devices from Blackmagic Design. Codec handling has also been improved, with ProRes hardware decode now supported on Apple Silicon. A new Diagnostic Tool is included for Live Review sessions, designed to assist in troubleshooting connection or synchronisation issues.

SDK and API housecleaning

RV’s underlying libraries have received significant updates. OpenEXR has been bumped to version 3.2.4, while OpenColorIO now runs on version 2.3.2. Python support has moved to version 3.11.9, and the Boost library has been upgraded to 1.82.0. FFmpeg has been updated to 6.1.2, and OpenSSL is now at version 3.0.

Pipeline-specific integrations have also advanced. The ARRI RAW SDK is now supported at version 0.21.1, the Blackmagic Design SDK has moved to 14.3, and the NDI SDK is at version 6.2.0. Qt 6.5.3 is now supported across all platforms. The Flow Production Tracking toolkit inside RV has been aligned with tk-core version 0.22.3.

https://aswf-openrv.readthedocs.io/en/latest/_images/rv-user-manual-4-rv-cxx-rv-linux-snapshot-03.jpg

Bug fixes

Autodesk reports a long list of resolved issues in RV 2025. The update fixes the broken presentation mode on Apple M1 machines and removes compatibility problems with Nuke versions 13, 14 and 15. A crash that occurred when loading incomplete PNG image sequences has been corrected, along with another that was triggered by AV1 movie files.

Playback synchronisation has been improved by fixing intermittent audio delays in presentation mode. Annotation drawing in Live Review has been sped up by removing delays, and the incorrect handling of source frame values in clips has been resolved. Proxy environment variables, which had previously failed, are now supported properly. Linux users running Rocky 8 with the Plasma X11 desktop should also find that errors on startup no longer occur.

Known limitations

Despite the introduction of high DPI support on macOS and Linux, Windows remains a problem area. Autodesk warns that high DPI on Windows is disabled by default due to instabilities in QtWebEngine, which is required by Flow Production Tracking packages. Users who want to test it can manually enable it by setting the “RV_QT_HDPI_SUPPORT” environment variable, but Autodesk does not recommend this for production.

Bottom line

RV 2025 is a substantial release, particularly for artists and studios relying on Apple Silicon hardware, annotation-heavy workflows, or participation in Creative Review sessions. As always, production teams should test the new version thoroughly within their own pipelines before rolling it out in active shows.

The post RV 2025: Onion Skin, Live Review, ARM Macs first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

]]> DIGITAL PRODUCTION Screenshot for Illustration purposes, taken from the OpenRV Github 199626