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Ftrack connect

Ftrack connect

Table of Contents

What’s Ftrack connect?

In order to start working in other softwares that are linked to ftrack with the SYNK pipeline, you will need to install and launch ftrack connect on your workstation. ftrack connect is an official application that increases functionality for the ftrack web interface with the launching of other applications (like Maya, Substance Painter or Hiero), notifications and publications of any kind of data into ftrack.

Logging in

You will first need to enter the site name (or custom domain URL) of your ftrack web address. You will then be prompted to enter your ftrack username and password in order to be logged in to ftrack connect.

Once you reach the main window of ftrack connect you can safely minimize it.

Do not close any of the ftrack connect windows as this will shut ftrack connect down and you will not be able to launch any tasks.

Make sure you are using the correct URL. You will not be able to launch tasks from a project in an ftrack instance if ftrack connect is logged in to another instance. To log out of your current instance, right-click the ftrack connect widget in your taskbar and select Log Out & Quit.

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You will then see two tabs at the top of the window: Actions and Publish.

Actions tab

In the Actions tab, click on Browse to select the action context you’ll be working with (in other words, select your project code - the action context is the group of actions that your project uses).

Ftrack connect is now correctly set up for you to pursue your work within the selected project. You’ll see in the Actions tab all the actions that you can directly launch freely from the app, without having to go through a task in the ftrack website. You can launch all programs when on the root of the project, but if you do this you will still have to choose your task when the program has opened to start working on your tasks.

You can also browse to your task, and open the program you need to use from there (ftrack connect shows the same hierarchy structure as on the web and the server).

Publish tab

In the Publish tab you can drag in any file that you want to publish to ftrack. This process will be used when the publication of a file directly from another software is not supported by the pipeline (like publishing an OTIO file made in Hiero for example).

  • Drag and drop any file you want to publish in the dashed rectangle at the very top of the window.

  • Always set the components name to ”file” instead of the actual name of the file.

  • Choose the correct path to where the file you’re publishing should be linked to: for example, for an OTIO file : your project > 602_shots > otio. → If the corresponding task doesn’t exist yet, you can just create it.

  • If this is the first time you publish this asset : Create new asset and give it the type of file that it corresponds to. If you’re updating an asset already published, select Version up existing.

  • In the Name field, you can use the same naming convention as the file itself that you're publishing (if it's correctly named of course) but without the version number, as this will be added by ftrack automatically.

  • For the Web playable, simply select "file" - your component.

  • In the description box, write a short summary about the content of the file and then you’re good to go, hit Publish.