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Artella - online Project Collaboration


Rodney

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From the folks behind Animation Mentor (Bobby Beck, Shawn Kelly and Carlos Beana) comes a new online collaboration platform; Artella.

 

There's not a lot of info at present but the Artella FAQs suggest the goal is to make it something of a GITHUB for creative projects.

One of the primary motivations appears to be that many folks want to get involved in creative projects but not everyone can do that for a living (i.e. there are only so many paying jobs to go around). What do you do with all that knowledge and experience? How do you keep from losing motivation? What exactly do you do with your talent?

Additional info:

- Creators maintain all rights to their projects.

- Project content is stored on Artella servers.

 

The big question is how much will belonging to Artella cost?

No word on that yet.

 

Artella plans to go live in late 2015.

 

http://www.artella.com/

 

 

(I might need to start a separate forum area just for all the various online collaboration services that are popping up these days)

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There are some services behind the scenes that can be utilized such as annotating content, project management, etc.

*If* they leverage some of the project management technology they've been developing over at Animation Mentor then that would justify some cost.

It remains to be seen how this might change given newer technology coming on line via Windows 10 etc. (although with Win10 that is mostly related to annotating within the browser)

 

When any service like this comes along my skepticism kicks in and I try to weigh the various pros and cons. My flaw though... I want to be optimistic. ;)

I'm specifically interested in how they will approach the collaboration of online projects because I've got a few thoughts on such things of my own (not that I would or could ever implement them).

The service is what would keep folks buying into the program.

I assume there may be some free access and other access that would allow additional services (much like the other creative collaboration services popping up online).

 

The primary process is one of notifying folks that the project owner is looking for assistance on a project. This is where they specify that they need 1 modeler, two textures... whatever... at a given time on their project. A percentage bar then lets everyone know how the project is progressing so they can view its current status. A popular project might have a multitude of people wanting to join in while a lesser known project might struggle until it finds a proper champion or someone that can help get the project off the ground.

 

What's in it for the folks behind the scenes is another question but the underlying answer for any business is always going to be profit. Profit potential can come is a number of varieties but I'd say this is in line with where the authors believe animation content is heading; which they state as moving more toward social collaboration.

 

For those that don't care to read their FAW they also state "Artella will be free to join and cost a low monthly subscription fee for projects, we do not plan to offer discounts as our goal is to make it accessible and affordable to all." The primary thing Artella has to do is pay for its cost of operation. If Animation Mentor can use it as a recruiting tool then that might also keep costs down as it can be reasoned that a good number of the students at Mentor will be likely to join in projects posted to Artella.

 

My projection: If a good number of paying gigs (perhaps initially sponsored by Animation Mentor) can be maintained then it should prove to be quite popular (folks would get involved in free projects and vie for positions in the paid projects. If others (individuals and companies) routinely sponsor paid projects on the site it will be successful and especially useful for project collaborators. .This isn't to say that much could be gained by joining in on the free projects but we must remember that a goal behind the effort is to profit; yes for the folks behind the site would surely like to make money but they won't make any if the system doesn't find a way to for the creative talent to profit. Artella will not be paying any of the talent. That is up to the owners of each project. The added aspect of course is that profit (on the part of the collaborators at least) doesn't always equate to money.

 

For the direct info:

http://artellahq.tumblr.com/FAQ

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I'd actually started on much the same thing for my own self. I was writing in in .net, and had hoped to tie it into my website. Had about 15-20% written before work kicked me hard and had to stop in order to get one or two hours of sleep.

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I am impressed that you have the talent and experience to do that. I wish I had the resources to pay you to teach me how to do it. I've got tons of ideas... can't implement any of them 'cause I'm ignorant of what I need to know to get the job done.. Although not knowing what I should have known has on more than one occasion been an asset. ;)

 

There are so many people programming applications for online management that it becomes increasingly hard to envision a home brewed variety that can.

I'll go out on a limb and suggest that Project/File Management and online collaboration (at least the basics of such) is something an operating system should do.

In other words, if the vast majority of users of an operating system need a specific tool then there is a viable market for it.

The powers that be keep circling around the solutions but they don't bite because there is too much at risk (at least at present) to lose.

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I am impressed that you have the talent and experience to do that. I wish I had the resources to pay you to teach me how to do it. I've got tons of ideas... can't implement any of them 'cause I'm ignorant of what I need to know to get the job done.. Although not knowing what I should have known has on more than one occasion been an asset. ;)

 

There are so many people programming applications for online management that it becomes increasingly hard to envision a home brewed variety that can.

I'll go out on a limb and suggest that Project/File Management and online collaboration (at least the basics of such) is something an operating system should do.

In other words, if the vast majority of users of an operating system need a specific tool then there is a viable market for it.

The powers that be keep circling around the solutions but they don't bite because there is too much at risk (at least at present) to lose.

 

Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate! I had envisioned an online app, geared mostly to A:M users, for A:M users, free of charge, where asset and project management was the main focus. Each user could set up their own "studio" where they managed projects and collaborators working on them. A global pool of interested people maintained at the site level. It's not that hard to do, and you can get the dev tools from Microsoft free, if you know where to look. Where I stopped was online annotation of storyboards.

 

Getting input from other folks is critical in designing these things, because invariably, I would find myself in a vacuum missing key pieces that others would find as show stoppers if they weren't there.

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