# 👋 Welcome to The Protocol**
> [!abstract] What is this vault?
> **The Protocol** is the public documentation of **Alternatives Productions** a collective that gathers a rotating group of artists around short film projects. The vault has two sides:
> - **📖 KNOWLEDGE** — a personal, software-focused 3D knowledge base (Houdini / Solaris, USD, RenderMan, Nuke, Maya, ZBrush, Mari, and more).
> - **🎬 THE PROTOCOL** and **OSMIUM** the living pipeline documentation for Alternatives Productions' short projects: naming conventions, USD workflow, render-farm setup, task tracking. And the one for ARTFX Lille USD pipeline 2024/2026
> - **NOTE ARTFX OSMIUM FOLDER MAY CONTAIN VIDEO AND DOCUMENTS ONLY OPENABLE by ARTFX students**
This Vault is participative and you can contribute to it directly via [[HOW CONTRIBUTE TO THIS DOCUMENTATION]]
I want to thanks particularly Loris Eck, Leo Hanrion, Viktor Weiss, Arthur Cauchois, Fabio Sguerra, Thomas Milcamps, Tristan Goupy, Erwan Vaquet. The first students of mine to contribute to this public knowledge
Browse freely; everything in `KNOWLEDGE/`, `INSPIRATIONS AND REFERENCES/` and `PROTOCOL/` is public.
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## 🧭 Start here
> [!tip] First time landing on the vault?
> Open the two main maps of content below. They are the entry points to **every** public note.
- 📖 **[[KNOWLEDGE/KNOWLEDGE MOC|KNOWLEDGE MOC]]** — index of all software and theory notes (DCCs, renderers, texturing, compositing, lookdev, lighting, color…).
- 📖 **[[ALTERNATIVES THE PROTOCOL/PROTOCOL MOC|PROTOCOL MOC]]** — index of the USD pipeline we use at Alternatives Productions, that you can use for yourself as well
---
## 🎬 About Alternatives Productions
**Alternatives Productions** is a organization build around **short-term collaborative projects** with rotating participants. Each project assembles artists from different backgrounds, learns together, and ships a short film. The pipeline that ties it all together is called **THE PROTOCOL**.
**Software stack (current)**
| Software | Version | Role |
| --------------- | -------- | ----------------------------------------- |
| Houdini | 21.0.559 | Scene building, FX, lookdev (Solaris/LOP) |
| RenderMan | 27.2 | Rendering (in Solaris / Karma context) |
| Prism Pipeline | v2.1.1 | Asset & shot management, publishing |
| NukeX | 16.0v6 | Compositing |
| Maya | 2026 | Modeling / rigging / animation |
| DaVinci Resolve | 20 | Color grading and DCP |
**Workflow in one line**
> Full **USD** pipeline — scene building in **Solaris**, rendering via **RenderMan**, publish/version via **Prism**, compositing in **NukeX**, grading in **Resolve**.
---
## 🤝 Contribute
This vault is open to contributions from Everyone.
- **Spot a typo, a missing step, an outdated version?** Open a pull request on the vault's GitHub repository — see [[HOW CONTRIBUTE TO THIS DOCUMENTATION|How to contribute]].
- **Naming-convention retake request?** Leave a comment on the [live naming-convention document](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1njKUUPvJuuMr5Qkx6wCVdkwkJpKYPStI8DLkxrXI9j8/edit?usp=sharing).
---
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