In what was one of the most intriguing announcements at NAB, Soho-based Foundry previewed a new cloud-based service for post-production that centralises infrastructure, creative tools and pipeline.

Once it is made available commercially, Elara will allow a studio, facility or single artist access to both Foundry and third-party 3D and visual effects applications, as well as their project assets, from within a web browser.

Integrated cloud rendering, scalable storage and project monitoring and analysis tools will also feature with no local software or hardware required.

At the show Foundry demonstrated how a global team could set up a virtual studio, complete with central pipeline, storage and resources, using Elara.

Third-party tools likely to be available within Elara include Side FX’s Houdini.

Foundry co-founder and chief scientist Simon Robinson, speaking to Broadcast, acknowledged that important commercial elements like subscription models and pricing, plus specifics on ingest, upload and hand-off were still being discussed and developed but he confirmed that Elara “works” and is not simply vapourware. A launch timeline is also yet to be decided.

The company is currently allowing interested parties to put their names down as potential testers of the Elara service.

Also at NAB, Foundry showed off an update to Nuke. Version 11 is now in beta and features improved collaboration capabilities including the much anticipated ‘Live Groups’ feature,