Random42 - More time improving workflows, less time building boxes

Random42 creates high-end medical animations for the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world. You’ve probably seen some of their work without realising, but by far the project that will have the most recall is the recent Netflix film The Game Changers. This documentary (executively produced by luminaries including James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jackie Chan) looks into the advantages a plant-based diet gives the body, and included animations created by Random42.

Liam O’Sullivan, Head of IT was happy to sit down and talk about Random42’s growth, and how by working collaboratively with Escape Technology, the studio is always ready for what comes next.

Of the 12 years he’s been at the studio, Liam has been working with Escape for at least seven. “They’ve taken responsibility off my shoulders and made life easier,” he smiles unapologetically. “[Working with Escape] means we can spend more time improving our workflows than building boxes.”

Working together with the future in mind

Around four years ago, Random42 were moving premises. The new site gave Liam a blank canvas, which meant the studio could have whatever they wanted, wherever they wanted it. Liam turned to Escape, and got exactly the kind of response he was expecting.

“The process is much more of a collaboration. It’s not really about coming to me and saying ‘Here’s what you need and here’s the cost’. It’s more of a ‘What can we do for you? What do you need? What are you working on?’ It’s then a case of working together to future-proof us, and to save us money. We’re working together on a project rather than just buying something off a shelf.”

Escape presented solutions at a range of price points, all with Random42’s future in mind. Liam and his team opted for a two-stage approach, partnering with pixitmedia to design and implement networking, reliable high-performance storage and a cloud-based workflow powered by Ngenea, and then upgrading workstations and its render farm a little way down the road.

On the day of the move, all the familiar Escape team were there to set everything up, a render farm comprising 80 Supermicro workstations, Ngenea Cloud backup, HP Anyware and 80 NUCS for the animators, and to connect the studio’s pixstor storage to this fresh system.

“It changed everything for us, but for me especially,” he says. “Production didn’t really notice the difference other than the speed because it all worked perfectly from day one.”

With backups now automated thanks to the Ngenea, Liam confesses that’s something he hasn’t really thought about in the past few years. “The whole thing’s smoother,” he says, “if anything does go missing it’s just two clicks away in the Cloud.”

A seamless process

The next stage around a year later saw the Escape team of technicians install 80 Supermicro workstations in the render farm, and 80 NUCs under the desks of the production team. Again, Liam is happy to say that the process was seamless. For the animators it feels just as responsive as when their machines were under their desks, only now it’s cleaner and much cooler.

One aspect that Liam is particularly enthusiastic about is the render speed they now enjoy. Being able to render everything overnight, and arrive in the morning ready for the next thing has really improved the workflow.

And talking of ‘the next thing’, what’s next for Random42? Like most studios, the team is looking to improve its 4k & 8k workflows, and expand its VR, AR and MR capabilities. Needless to say, Liam and our team are already drawing up plans!

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To see the Random42 showreel, click here.