CgEvent and Kiev Roadshow ^{12:50 May 17}

Sorry this event will be only for Russian speaking customers.

March 5-28 EuroTrip ^{00:40 February 28}

Here it comes! A whole European Road-show. During the whole month of March we are going to visit some of our most important local-reseller partners in the European Union, and with their help we will be able to find the right words with the local customers. The whole month is packed with meetings in the great European places for Postproduction and VFX. Starting from the beginning of March 6-10th in Paris, then 11-15th the Benelux countries (particularly Brussels, Luxembourg and Amsterdam cities) and for the whole two weeks from 18 to 28th of March we will enjoy Frankfurt, Wiesbaden and Munich. In every place we will stay no more than 4 days, during which we will show our Cerebro, personally to all the guys who are eager to learn more about our product, so to say. Their feedback will be important for us and for our future product development, also it will give us a great product promotion opportunity.

And by the way, if you are interested in Cerebro, our European Road trip is a great chance to see the product and have a free presentation by the product developers in your office. If you are located somewhere around our planned route, please send to Konstantin Kharitonov (khar@cinesoft.ru), an enquiry and we will drop-in to your place too!

Cerebro Road Map Webinar ^{23:32 February 4}

Sorry this Webinar will be only for Russian speaking customers.

New Special Offers ^{19:24 January 24}

Clasroom Pack

The Pack is specially designed for schools and colleges that train professionals for the Media and Entertainment industry.

For just only $ 990, we provide 20 Cerebro licenses for 12 months with an option of renewal on the same terms.

That price includes software installation, school personnel training and technical support during that period.
We grant the software to schools for a non-commercial use only – for the educational, organizational and methodological purposes.

If your school requires more licenses – contact us and we’ll work something out for you. Somehing even more “special”  than this ))).

In order to apply for one of these special packages, follow 3 simple steps:

1. Send  us an enquiry to info@cinesoft.ru and we will send you back the required documents package.
2. Then fill-in these documents and sign them up, also please attach the scan copies of statement from a  register of legal entities (or as similar document) and send back to us.
3. Pay the invoice and appoint the best time for you for the system installation and employees training.

All the questions that might arise you can ask by phone.: +7 (495) 9800376 and e-mail: info@cinesoft.ru

The Winners Take It All. CGEvent-2012. ^{, 201219:54 December 6, 2012}

During the last weekend the lobby and six conference halls of the Holiday Inn Sokolniki were overcrowded with more than 2000 CGI professionals from all over the ex-USSR territory.

The Tenth CG Event Moscow was the largest professional conference in Russia, with almost 90 lectures and seminars in 2 days and 7 concurrent sections.

One of the traditional show-stoppers was EventReel-2012, the CGI demo reel contest. The contest was held in three nominations: “VFX”, “Character Animation” and “Motion Design”. Unlike the previous years, this time the contest was judged by the “popular vote” of the CGI community: winners were determined by more than 200 online voters.

Our congratulations to the First prize winners and, especially, to the Second prize winners who were awarded with Cerebro 6-month subscription certificates:

• “VFX” – Terminal FX company (Kyiv, Ukraine),
• “Character Animation” – Vipline company (Minsk, Belarus),
• “Motion Design” – Trehmer company (Moscow, Russia).

You can watch all videos from EventReel competition at Vimeo – http://vimeo.com/cgevent

Another thing worth mentioning is that Konstantin Kharitonov, CineSoft CEO, took the floor with a presentation of the latest Cerebro release feature set.

The seminar keynotes (Sorry only Russian):

Photos:

Update – Task Tracking and Updated Documentation ^{, 201206:36 November 29, 2012}

Task Tracking

Following the large amount of requests from the VFX and animation studios, a new tab – “Task Tracking” – has been created. It is designed for more intuitive “matrix” displaying the current situation on the project, divided into standard process steps.

In order that this tab function properly, the project must have a tree-like structure with a depth of at least three levels, for example: “Sequence” -> “Shot” -> “Task”. In this case, when “Sequence” is selected in Navigator, then the rows of the table will show “Shots”, and columns – “Tasks” (note: it is not a “Task” name that is used as a column heading but a task-related “Activity” name).

At the bottom of the window task progress statistics can be displayed on the Activities within the observed threads of the project and also the number of tasks that are marked with some tag.
For a correct collection of these statistics it is required that tags must be appointed at the “Shot” level, and “activities” – at the “Task” level. Statistics display is switched on / off by the   button.

The  button is to pin down the current thread displayed in Task Tracking window, i.e.,  when the button is turned on, the transition to the other task threads in the Navigator does not affect the contents of the Task Tracking window.

The  button switches the type of data displayed in the cells: when it is turned on, the cells display the names of allocated users, with off – the numeric value of the progress of the task. By default, the button is on.

Same as the Navigator, the Task Tracking window supports inline-editing of table cells.

A double left-click will select the same cell (task) in the Navigator.

New Notification Types

With the introduction of a new task displaying filter in the users ToDo lists(see below), similar filters are introduced also to the e-mail notification system. The configuration is done in the user profile properties window. For this to happen, two new fields are introduced: ”E-mail Notification Settings on new assignments available” and ”E-mail Notification Settings on upcoming assignment start time”.

Thus, the user can choose the most convenient mode of getting notifications that new tasks are available to him, as well as warnings for the approaching start of the planned tasks.

Assigned Tasks Filtering

On the “To Do List” tab, a new filter  has appeared to hide the assigned tasks, which are currently unavailable to start working on.

The logic behind the filter function is as follows: if a task is connected to the predecessors tasks, and currently they are not finished / not closed, then, it is considered that it is impossible to take over the task and start working on it. If all the predecessor tasks are completed (closed) or non-existent, then the task is available for execution and does not get hidden by the filter.

The filter is useful when a user is working on a long-time project with a large number of interconnected tasks.

Documentation Updates

Two new sections are published in the technical documentation for Cerebro SDK, namely:

• Python API to the Memoria database and to the Cargador service,
• XML-RPC API to the Cargador service.

For the next release the following chapters are being prepared:

• SQL API to the Memoria database,
• HTML API to the Cargador service.

Besides, the new Cerebro Installation Guide has been issued.

New Cerebro Update – Two-Way Communication by email ^{, 201218:44 September 14, 2012}

We gladly present a new Cerebro Serpens version.

Its major difference from the previous versions is a possibility of two-way communication in the Forum between Cerebro users and the people who do not have full accounts in Cerebro (for more understanding we will call them “Email users”). See below how it works, and also about other innovations inside this new version.

A New Type of Users: Email User

In fact, a Cerebro email user is just an email address registered in the system to which copies of messages from the Forum are sent. Files attached to the Forum messages are not transferred as files, but they are sent as download links. The letter, usually, looks like this:

In this screenshot you see that this letter comes from Cerebro  to the  user’s email , and the answer to this letter is automatically published back in Cerebro, in the corresponding thread of the Forum, together with its attachments  (if those were added to the answer):

Email users’ accounts are free of charge but their amount is limited, it is equal to the amount of the “standard” user accounts in your universe. See the “Universe” tab of the “Administrator” panel to get the amounts of used/unused accounts of both types.

Check out the official whitepaper to know more about this feature.

Inline editing

Editing the task properties, previously possible in a special “Task properties” tab only, now is accessible in all table interfaces displaying such properties: in the Navigator, in Statistics, in the «ToDo» and «Followed Tasks» lists.

Inline editing, from the user point of view, is similar to data editing in spread sheets:

It is possible to edit all the tags and task properties, including lists of allocated performers and “followers”.

Other New Features

• Expanding a task tree in the Navigator by a single click.
• A new option – forced file upload by Cargador (available if Cargador service is running on a file server, not on a workstation).
• Repeated creation of tasks with identic properties. Two new buttons – «Save and Close» and «Save and New Task» are replacing the “Save” button.
• Binding serial tasks into a Gantt chart sequence. Check the «Link the next task to this task» checkbox to use this option.
• A status bar appears in the main interface. It displays the amount of tasks/items selected/unread, alongside with some filter indicators.
• Instant tag setting for a range of selected tasks.
• Tweaking default amount of planned work time for newly created tasks (in the project properties).
• New features of the “User Statistics” interface:
  • Unlimited depth of detailing.
  • Any column can be exported to Excel.
  • Progress percentage, time and budget amounts are summed up on higher levels by the selected users.

• Much faster performance due to optimized database queries.
• New search criteria introduced:
  • By task status: «Task is Event», «Task is paused», «Task closed».
  • By names of deleted users.
• Password reset disable option.
• Definition can be copied from one task to another and pasted to an empty Forum thread.
• Default task start time selection: new tasks start either in the moment they are created or at the same time when the project was created. You can select the proper option in the “Projects” tab of the “Administrator” panel.
• Login window displays the current build number.

More information

[Update] IBC Road Show ^{, 201219:41 August 17, 2012}

Photos from IBC 2012

Who missed the speech by James Cameron?

On September 7-13 we are planning to visit the IBC conference in Amsterdam. Straight after the show we will have several meetings with Postproduction/VFX facilities there, for them we will have our live product demonstration and presentations, will show them some new smoking secret features of our product .

We are looking forward to show Cerebro to VFX/ Post production crowd, because their feedbacks will be very valuable for us and for further product development. With the help of our local reselling partner in Benelux, who will be able to find the right words with the customers there.

If you are interested in our product, please mail to Konstantin Kharitonov (khar@cinesoft.ru), and we will drop in to your place too!
Stay tuned for more updates about our trips!.. Yeah, trips! Haha!