twotalesanimation
f6a7f0ef5a
The dashboard was a generic task-manager view of a studio that does not work
that way. Two of its five headline numbers counted Task.dueDate, which no
pipeline code writes - the only writer is a manual field on the task detail
page, so those cards read zero by construction. The rest were unscoped and
cumulative ("approved" across every project ever finished), the activity feed
was the notification table, and the shot queue sampled 15 rows by updatedAt,
a column the farm touches constantly. Nothing about failed exports, QC depth
or the render farm appeared at all, so a RENDER_FAILED was only visible if
someone thought to open the queue and filter for it.
Replaced with pipeline state, which the system maintains on its own:
- Blocked queue: the four failed statuses plus exports that stopped
progressing, each with the reason read off the actual cause - the failing
validation check, the QC note, the aerender error, or the machine that
claimed it and went quiet.
- Farm strip: machines, queue depth by job type, oldest unclaimed job, and
worker-version drift, since a worker's version decides which fixes it has.
- Five counters that can go down, scoped to live productions, each linking to
the rows it counted.
The queue page ignored ?status=, so the counters had nowhere to link; it now
takes an initial filter from the URL. Stat cards are hidden from CLIENT users
- the old ones were generic version counts, these are internal pipeline state.
Thresholds live in SystemConfig (dashboard.qcStaleHours, .stalledJobHours) so
they can be tuned without a redeploy.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
FeedBack — VFX Review & Approval Platform
Frame-accurate video review, annotation drawing, and approval tracking for boutique VFX and animation studios.
Features
- Dead-simple video upload — drag & drop MP4/MOV, up to 2 GB, version-tracked
- Frame-accurate scrubbing — canvas-based timeline ruler with click-and-drag seek
- Timestamp comments — comments anchored to exact frame numbers, threaded replies, resolve/unresolve
- Annotation drawing — freehand, arrow, rectangle, circle tools with color + stroke width picker
- Approval workflow — Approve / Reject / Needs Changes with notes, full history
- Client review links — shareable token-based review URLs for external clients (no login required)
- Role-based access — Admin / Producer / Supervisor / Artist / Client roles
- Slack notifications — webhook alerts for uploads and approvals
- Self-hostable — Docker Compose with PostgreSQL + MinIO (S3-compatible) included
Tech Stack
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Framework | Next.js 15 App Router (Turbopack) |
| Language | TypeScript 5 strict |
| Styling | TailwindCSS 3 + shadcn/ui (zinc, dark-only) |
| Auth | NextAuth.js v5 (Credentials + JWT) |
| Database | PostgreSQL 16 via Prisma 6 |
| File Storage | UploadThing / S3 / R2 / B2 / MinIO / local |
| State | Zustand 5 (player) + TanStack Query 5 (server) |
| Annotations | HTML5 Canvas API (normalized coordinates) |
| Video Playback | HTML5 <video> with custom controls |
| Container | Docker multi-stage build |
Quick Start (Docker)
# 1. Clone and configure
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env — set AUTH_SECRET, DATABASE_URL, storage provider
# 2. Start services (PostgreSQL + MinIO + App)
docker compose up -d
# 3. Run migrations and seed
docker compose exec app npx prisma migrate deploy
docker compose exec app npx tsx prisma/seed.ts
# 4. Open http://localhost:3000
Demo accounts (after seed):
| Password | Role | |
|---|---|---|
| admin@vfxreview.local | admin123 | Admin |
| producer@vfxreview.local | producer123 | Producer |
| supervisor@vfxreview.local | supervisor123 | Supervisor |
| artist@vfxreview.local | artist123 | Artist |
| client@studio.com | client123 | Client |
Local Development
# Install dependencies
npm install
# Set up database (Postgres must be running)
npx prisma migrate dev
npx tsx prisma/seed.ts
# Start dev server
npm run dev
Open http://localhost:3000.
Environment Variables
See .env.example for full reference. Key variables:
# Required
DATABASE_URL="postgresql://..."
AUTH_SECRET="your-32-char-secret"
NEXTAUTH_URL="http://localhost:3000"
# Storage (choose one)
STORAGE_PROVIDER="local" # local | uploadthing | s3 | r2 | b2 | minio
# UploadThing (if STORAGE_PROVIDER=uploadthing)
UPLOADTHING_SECRET="sk_live_..."
UPLOADTHING_APP_ID="..."
# AWS S3 / R2 / B2 compatible
S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID=""
S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=""
S3_BUCKET_NAME=""
S3_REGION=""
S3_ENDPOINT="" # for R2/B2/MinIO
# Slack (optional)
SLACK_BOT_TOKEN=""
# Email (optional, nodemailer)
SMTP_HOST=""
SMTP_PORT="587"
SMTP_USER=""
SMTP_PASS=""
Project Structure
app/
(auth)/login/ — Sign-in page
(dashboard)/ — Protected dashboard layout
dashboard/ — Home stats + shot queue
projects/ — Project list + detail pages
settings/ — User profile
review/[versionId]/ — Full-screen review player
client/[token]/ — Unauthenticated client review link
api/
auth/[...nextauth]/ — NextAuth route handler
uploadthing/ — UploadThing route handler
notifications/ — Notification CRUD
projects/ — Projects REST endpoint
components/
player/ — ReviewPlayer, FrameTimeline, PlaybackControls
annotations/ — AnnotationCanvas, AnnotationTools
comments/ — CommentPanel (threads + replies)
versions/ — VersionUpload, VersionList
shots/ — ShotCard, NewShotDialog
projects/ — ProjectCard, NewProjectDialog
dashboard/ — StatsCards, ShotQueue, RecentActivity
layout/ — Sidebar, Header, NotificationBell, Providers
ui/ — shadcn/ui base components
actions/ — Server Actions (projects, shots, versions, comments, annotations, approvals)
lib/ — db, auth, utils, frame-utils, storage, slack, notifications, uploadthing
hooks/ — use-review-player (Zustand), use-annotations, use-frame-comments
prisma/ — schema.prisma, seed.ts
Review Player Keyboard Shortcuts
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
Space / K |
Play / Pause |
J |
Reverse playback |
L |
Forward playback |
← / → |
Step one frame |
F |
Toggle fullscreen |
Documentation
| Doc | Covers |
|---|---|
| RenderPipeline2.md | Render pipeline specification — normative design, state machine, API contracts |
| DELIVERY_WORKFLOW.md | Building and shipping delivery packages (how-to) |
| VFXReviewConnector.md | After Effects panel — setup, Shot Builder, QC, diagnostics |
| RenderWorker/README.md | Render worker service — packaging, install, validation, delivery builds |
| BlenderPanel/README.md | Blender add-on — queueing a .blend on the farm |
| EXT_API_REFERENCE.md | External API (/api/ext/*) used by the panel and workers |
| Shot task workflow.md | Shot and task lifecycle in the web app |
License
MIT