Log

If you've ever had the pleasure of creating a student short film, you probably already know the feeling.

The final weeks become chaos.

Machines roaring through the night. Artists sleeping in labs. File paths breaking. References lost in the ether. Panic troubleshooting at 3AM and before you know it, morning classes start rolling in, signaling that your suffering is temporarily coming to a close before you pick it all back up again after the last night class.

In some cases, the difference between pass or fail genuinely comes down to whether the film actually makes it to the screen.

I remember that stress vividly from my own time as a student.

But after spending the last couple of years on the other side of the classroom as an instructor, I started seeing those same horror stories replay almost like clockwork.

Different students. Same problems.

At the same time, we also wanted to continue pushing student work toward the standards the industry keeps raising. Better lighting. Quality grooms. Higher fidelity work. The list could go on and on.

But there was a core problem: rendering was still happening largely the same way many of us experienced it many moons ago.

Students moving giant project files machine to machine. Signs taped onto computers warning their peers not to touch active renders. Freshmen unintentionally terrified they might destroy an upperclassman’s thesis film by pressing the wrong button. Labs becoming increasingly chaotic during finals week as rendering competed with classes, deadlines, and already stretched resources.

Something clearly had to change.

Our First Stop: Deadline

Naturally, one of the first places we looked was AWS Thinkbox Deadline .

Historically, it was something I had worked with before and, on paper, it made a lot of sense. It is an industry staple. Amazon bought them out, so with the backing of a major corporation, support would be there if needed. Distributing renders across roughly 80 available lab machines required a stable and reputable solution.

We wanted to remove rendering as a bottleneck and continue pushing the quality of what our students could create. The goal was simple.

But once implementation started, we quickly realized we were running into limitations specific to our environment and, unfortunately, our budget.

Some of the constraints were not immediately obvious, and we eventually hit ceilings that made it difficult to fully leverage an entire lab the way we had originally envisioned. Turns out, it is not free regardless of what some of the forums online might lead you to believe.

You can use Deadline for free, but only up to a set number of hosts. Great if you are a smaller studio with a handful of machines, but we are lucky enough to have several labs and, to be honest, we wanted to use all of the resources available to us.

The last thing we wanted was, once again, finals week turning into a rush to get frames out. We also did not want infrastructure becoming yet another thing students had to fight. And honestly, carving out budget for something that felt increasingly fundamental did not sit particularly well with us. At this point, render management feels like it should be fairly rudimentary given how long CG has been around.

So we went back to the drawing board.

Enter OpenCue

That search eventually led us to OpenCue , an open-source render management system originally developed at Sony Pictures Imageworks .

What immediately stood out was the source: Sony. Couple that with it being free and open-source and we had a winner.

Because OpenCue is open source, we were not locked into forcing a university budget into another software package if there was another way. More importantly, having access to the source code meant we could actually fork parts of it, adapt pieces for our environment, and start shaping something that felt more aligned with education and our productions at UIW.

My goal since I first started teaching has been fairly straightforward: bring the industry into the classroom.

Early on, I pitched the idea of a "Unified Pipeline". Something we could build, control, and continue refining as the program evolved. Slowly but surely, pieces of that vision have started coming together.

We have a headless Ubuntu server. We have source and version control through Perforce . Jenkins handles our CI/CD, allowing us to always have a current build of our games. We have project management and a knowledge base through JetBrains YouTrack . I am currently exploring AYON and Prism as potential pipeline solutions to help further unify the experience.

At that point, it was only a matter of time before we started hunting for a render management solution to add to the growing list of pieces that make up this larger vision, one I am excited to continue writing about.

I would also be remiss not to mention that none of this happened in isolation.

One of the things I have been incredibly grateful for throughout this process has been how supportive my colleagues have been in buying into this larger vision of where we can take things. Building infrastructure like this in higher education only works when people are willing to experiment, troubleshoot, and occasionally embrace a bit of controlled chaos.

A special shout out to my work husband Jacob Salazar for diving head first into this with me from the start, helping troubleshoot, test, and push ideas forward. We've had many late nights elbow to elbow brute forcing our way to get this to work. Huge thanks as well to Jingtian Li and Adam Watkins for fully buying in and backing the vision. Having that level of support makes trying ambitious things not only possible, but genuinely exciting.

That said, students are still students.

We are not backed by a publisher. We make both films and games in our four year program split up into concentrations. Our first-year students do not need to know a thing about 3D when they walk through the door. Four years sounds like a long time until you realize just how much there still is to learn.

So yes, industry in the classroom and labs, but under the umbrella of academia and everything that comes with it.

Things are going to break. Someone will still forget to path their textures correctly. Somebody will absolutely render the wrong camera. Chaos will always exist. That is part of the magic of student productions.

Well... productions, period.

But if we can remove some of the unnecessary suffering around rendering, and eventually the broader pipeline, then it is 1000% worth pursuing.

What We’re Working Toward

• Right now, the focus is fairly straightforward:
• Utilize available university hardware for rendering without disrupting
• Support offline workflows across Maya and Arnold, with Houdini and USD to come
• Reduce friction around stress and sleepless nights to create a healthier studio environment
• Support collaborative thesis and capstone productions across multiple years
• Adapt OpenCue for the realities of higher education
• Give students exposure to more production-aware workflows

We stood up the render farm toward the end of Summer 2025 and spent the last year putting it through its paces.

There have been some horror stories, a few wins, and honestly, a lot learned in the process.

I am excited to finally have this site together and a place to host some of my rambling thoughts. More to come!

Every year, faculty from our university travel to our sister schools as part of a broader effort to build relationships, strengthen programs, and stay aligned across campuses. Last year, I had the opportunity to visit our sister campus in Bajío . This year, toward the end of the Spring 2026 semester, I found myself in Mexico City visiting [Centro Universitario Incarnate Word (CIW)](https://www.ciw.edu.mx/).

The trip was multifaceted.

Part teaching. Part collaboration. Part relationship building. Part making sure we are all heading in the same direction as programs and industry continue evolving.

It was productive to say the least. Meeting faculty in person, spending time with students, seeing the resources and facilities firsthand, and identifying where programs align, where they differ, and where we can continue strengthening the bridge between campuses.

Boots On The Ground

The visit centered around two teaching blocks.

The first was a 2-hour masterclass, focused on my background, character creation with a production mindset, and the realities of building work for games and film. I always enjoy these kinds of sessions because they become less about presenting information and more about opening conversations around process, problem solving, worries, doubts, and the weird balancing act between art, technical execution, and production realities.

The second block shifted into a 2-hour studio workshop, critiques, and feedback session were to follow.

Honestly, the studio hands-on workshops are unlike anything else. They're what keep me going.

There is something really rewarding about sitting down with students, seeing where they are at, hearing what they are struggling with, and helping problem solve in real time. Whether it is anatomy, design decisions, workflow issues, or simply confidence in their work, workshop sessions always feel like the place where I can genuinely help the students beat their game. Whatever that means to them. I'm there for it all and to help as much as I possibly can.

The Birds Eye View

Outside of teaching, one of the biggest goals of the trip was simply getting to know the team.

Meeting faculty face-to-face changes things. Conversations become more candid. You gain a better understanding of what each campus is navigating, what resources exist, what limitations are present, and how programs are evolving in response.

I was able to tour their facilities, talked curriculum, explored resources, and had a lot of conversations about how we can continue aligning programs while still respecting the needs and realities of each campus.

And of course, there was also Mexico City itself.

Getting to explore the city, experience the culture, and spend time outside the university setting was equally as valuable. Trips like this remind me how important context is. Programs do not exist in a vacuum. Culture, environment, resources, and local perspectives all shape the kinds of artists and students we are helping develop.

What's To Come

The trip was short, but very meaningful.

Relationships were made and also reinforced. Missing links became a little clearer. New ideas surfaced. And perhaps most importantly, the bridge between campuses felt just a bit smaller.

I left with a couple initiatives planned and in the coming year I'm thrilled to see where it goes and what future opportunities emerge for students, faculty, and collaboration across campuses. Should be fun!