The Cross-platform Open Media Production and Operation at Scale Ecosystem (COMPOSE) project will assist traditional animation/CGI/VFX businesses to improve the scalability of their digital infrastructure and to better collaborate across supply chains. The project will build a demonstrator and focus on ways to reduce some of the main barriers to collaborative creativity; closed workflow cycles, proprietary datasets, high infrastructure investment overheads, rigid production pipelines which do not address multi-platform publishing. The project will be led by award winning studio Axis Animation (Gold Cannes Lion, Imagina Grand Jury Prize and Best Animation BAFTA winners) whose clients include Microsoft, Activision and Warner Brothers. The project consortium also includes Thinkbox, an industry leading software tool developer for both small and large film/CGI/VFX production studios (used on feature films such as Transformers, Harry Potter and Avatar), AIMES, a cloud technology provider who has led major TSB projects in digital media and infrastructure, and Render Nation, international industry experts in render service provision and production pipeline architecture.

Our aim is to R&D the creation of an integrated pipeline based on the use of real-time video game engines. This will increase the potential range of work we can undertake and additionally allow us to deliver work at lower costs, over shorter timescales and with easier iteration. The project outcome will provide a unified set of tools, methods and processes allowing us to fully integrate our core services with multiple third party and bespoke real-time game engines, and to retain and expand our customer base, opening up new markets whilst protecting our current hard won revenue base.