Principles For a Successful Pipeline

Welcome to this multipart series on principles for a successful pipeline. I hope it allows you to look at your own 3D and AI pipelines and identify opportunities to make it better so that you can deliver more high quality content without all the pain.

Over the past 20+ years, I've worked in lots of different 3D pipelines: from animated movies (Pixar), to video games (Nickelodeon, Disney), to product design and development (Nike, Timberland, Patagonia, The North Face, Intersport), to interactive application development (Timberland, Stage), and everything in between. I’ve seen a lot.

I've seen pipelines that worked extremely well but were really locked down and inflexible, and pipelines that were totally open but were completely disorganized and didn't work at all.

Since I started my own studio, and as I've worked with companies from many different industries, I've seen one continual issue:

If they are having problems delivering the product that they promise to, it's not usually the people, it's the process. It's typically the process that is dramatically limiting their ability to deliver all that they are promising to.

I’ve put together some ideal principles that I have seen make a pipeline work really well. While they may not perfectly work for every instance, thinking through each of them with your pipeline can help you identify processes that are keeping you from delivering your best.

Each pipeline is different. But adhering to specific principles, and then tailoring it to your situation and needs is where the power comes in.

We are going to be taking these principles one at a time, breaking them down, and discussing how each contributes to a working, streamlined, efficient, high-quality pipeline and process.

Through this series, I hope that you will take an honest and open look at your content creation process and pipeline. See what is working, and what is not. Be willing to admit wrong decisions, and fix them. Be willing to create tools where a possible upfront cost dramatically reduces costs increases later. Rip the band-aid off, clean the wounds that are never healing, and build an incredible content machine with me.

You’ll wonder why you didn’t do this years ago.

If you would like to dive deeper into your pipeline with me, and would like to explore how you can make it more powerful, efficient, faster, and more flexible, set up a quick 15 min discovery call with me. I’d love to know how we can make your pipeline better together.

About this newsletter: Every week, I share some insights into 3D content creation pipelines - tools, processes, success stories, pipeline mistakes, and more. It’s meant to help those involved in 3D product creation, from artists to managers and leadership, understand what is happening in their world, and how to use the latest technologies to create higher quality with greater efficiency, saving time and money.

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