Shotgun adds auto-discovery for major media creation tools

Other new features improve collaboration in digital content review and media production.

The latest version of Autodesk Shotgun for digital asset management offers new ways to improve collaboration with most leading content creation tools. The cloud-based review and production tracking software also simplifies its ability to coordinate with IT and improves the RV viewing engine.

New features in Shotgun 7.2 include:

Plug-and-play integrations: New plug-and-play integrations first auto-discover creation software and then embed the Shotgun Panel, Loader, and Publisher directly within them without requiring any manual configuration. Supported products in this release are: Autodesk Maya, 3ds Max, and Flame; The Foundry Nuke; Adobe Photoshop; and SideFX Houdini.

**A new plug-and-play auto-discover feature makes fast work of integrating Shotgun with a variety of creation programs, including Nuke (shown here). (Source: Autodesk)**

Web streaming in RV: Many Shotgun users work on dispersed teams around the world, and might not always have access to the high-res media for reviews in RV (“ReView”), the web-based image and video playback engine. With the addition of cloud playback support in RV, web-connected artists and supervisors can review shots in context, even if the content is not stored on their computers. Shotgun recognizes if media isn’t available and pulls it into RV from Shotgun on the web.

New publisher: A new publisher tool enables easy tracking of files in Shotgun and can either run in content creation tools or as a standalone application – giving users the flexibility to publish files from any content creation tools, not just the ones currently supported by Shotgun.

Single sign-on: The new single sign-on improves security by centralizing authentication. An IT department can now grant, limit, and revoke access and permissions for any user.

SDI functionality in RV: SDI (serial digital interface) functionality, previously only available with “Super Awesome” support, is now available to all Shotgun clients.

Shotgun is priced as a monthly subscription, starting at $30 per account/per month depending on the level of service. Named uses of Shotgun include DreamWorks, Framestore, Blizzard, Microsoft, Double Negative, and Ubisoft.