Jackpot City

Problem

Campaign frames rendered out of Maya took around 45 minutes each, and the studio was paying for render farm time to hit deadlines.

Constraint

Compositing needed the passes kept separate, and Unreal does not output them. The art team had to keep working in Maya.

What I built

An Unreal Engine 5 render pipeline with custom pass extraction, a USD interchange between Maya and Unreal, and a crowd system that scattered civilians across the city set.

Result

About 45 minutes to about 7 minutes per frame. Roughly six times faster, and the render farm line item went away.

A hard output budget, a pipeline that has to hit it, and other people depending on the tool while I change it.