The journey of developing Unipipe.io has been both challenging and rewarding. As we approach our official release date on August 12, it is satisfying to reflect on the steps that brought us here and look forward to the impact we hope our platform will have on the visual effects, animation, and gaming industries.
Unipipe.io was conceived out of necessity. As a team working in our own animation studio, we faced constant frustrations with existing pipeline management tools. These tools were often fragmented, expensive and still required us to jump between different apps for review, task and file management. We realized that a more integrated, user-friendly solution was needed, not just for us, but for the entire industry—especially freelancers and small to medium sized studios, teams just like us.
Bootstrapping financially is always difficult, and balancing the full-time work of the team with attempting to develop a new platform, reaching our goals often proved tough and slow progress was often disheartening. However, we persevered and slowly and surely, reached a point in which we could start to demo our product, and gain some much needed feedback from our potential clients and pilot users.
We also faced the challenge of ensuring our platform was truly cross-platform. Our web app needed to be accessible from any device, and our desktop app needed to run seamlessly on Windows, Linux, and Mac. This required rigorous testing and iterations, but the end result is a flexible, robust and reliable solution for our users, which was our goal from the very beginning.
Initially planned to just facilitate our pipeline deployment and file management, we soon learned that our core infrastructure had the potential to empower users to do much more than that, and is now a comprehensive production and pipeline management platform.
Now Unipipe.io bridges the gap between file management, task management, pipeline deployment, and media review tools. In some ways, our “one size fits all” solution(to borrow a tired cliché) isn’t that at all. In reality, building a truly one size fits all product is an impossible task, instead we built a tool that lets users easily configure pipelines that perfectly match their requirements and desired workflows of each project, without touching a line of code.
We eliminated the need for using multiple subscriptions and apps to manage a production. This has resulted in significantly streamlining our workflows and ultimately enhances the productivity of any team. This is not only great for the wellbeing of our artists and managers, but a huge cost saver for the studio. Some in the industry estimate that up to 30% of artists' time is spent on non creative tasks, including digging around for misnamed files.
🔥 “I surveyed artists and found they spend 25-30% of their time (12 hours/week) on non-creative tasks, excluding reviews.” - Chris Cunnington, CG supervisor.
The goal for us was always to help support the VFX, Animation and Game Development industries, but it's become clear to us that the potential of our underlying infrastructure has implications far outside of the entertainment industry.
Feedback from discussions and product demos has been overwhelmingly positive. It has also been instrumental in helping us refine the product. Looking ahead, we envision Unipipe.io soon growing to sit alongside current industry-standard tools, not just for the bigger studios, but also for freelancers and small teams. We aim to make Unipipe.io a hub for all art generation tools, continuing to address the needs of our users and staying ahead of industry trends.
Already looking ahead, our immediate roadmap includes additional cloud storage options, further supporting remote teams, as well as dozens of new features we’re designing based on direct user feedback.
As we prepare for our official release, we invite you to join the Unipipe.io community. Sign up today at Unipipe.io and start experiencing the benefits of our platform first hand. For those interested in a demo or more information, please contact us at support@unipipe.io.
Stay tuned for weekly updates and articles where we'll share more about our journey, industry insights, and tips on getting the most out of Unipipe.io.
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Unipipe.io is here to revolutionize production and pipeline management—making your workflow smoother, more efficient, and more productive.
