A tutorial series for cloud-based digital content creation

Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers digital content creators, including visual effects and animation studios, a tutorial series to take production entirely to the cloud. This teaching series is designed for small teams looking for ways to scale production, work remotely, and improve collaboration. In the series, we walk through how to set up cloud-based virtual workstations, cloud storage, and cloud rendering.

What you will accomplish:

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• Launch high-powered virtual workstations with GPU-backed Amazon EC2 G4 Instances for artists who use digital content creation tools such as Blender.
• Connect your workstations to cloud storage with Amazon FSx to enable collaboration on shared project data.
• Build a cloud render farm with Amazon EC2 Spot Instances and AWS Thinkbox Deadline to render shots with incredible compute elasticity and cost control.
• Perform basic administrative tasks using the AWS Management Console. Learn how to start and stop Amazon EC2 instances and create a custom image you can use to provision new digital content creation cloud desktops.

This series gets you started with fully cloud-based digital content creation. The virtual studio you build can expand and contract to meet the needs of production with pay-as-you-go pricing. Customization is available beyond the published tutorials to meet your specific production needs. You may want to take additional steps to secure data to meet individual compliance goals unique to your requirements.

Although some familiarity with AWS services is useful, it is by no means required to put these tutorials to use. The series of seven steps takes approximately eight hours to complete.

Click here to get started.

Visit our details page to learn more about virtual workstations on AWS for media and entertainment running on EC2 G4 instances and featuring NVIDIA Quadro technology.

Here is a breakdown of each step in the series:

1. Get started with AWS virtual workstations

2. Create a VPC and Active Directory for your studio

3. Set up an FSx file system and user accounts

4. Build a render scheduler with AWS Thinkbox Deadline

5. Install applications and create a workstation AMI

6. Set Up a Linux farm worker and spot fleet request

7. Onboard new artists and sample workflow

Additional add-on guides

8. Add-On – Upgrade to Teradici for desktop streaming

9. Add-On – Use a Linux instance for a render scheduler

10. Add On – Use Linux and Teradici for a virtual workstation

Tutorials authored by Jason Schleifer – Principal Creative Director, Dave Murphy – Pre-Production Supervisor, and Kathleen Curry – Senior Animator.