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For more than 25 years, Minneapolis-based Perforce Software has been focused on helping technology teams solve the most difficult problems in DevOps, offering highly scalable development and DevOps solutions.

Today, three out of four Fortune 100 companies — covering automotive, semiconductor, financial services, game development, virtual production, medical and more — use Perforce solutions.

Katie Cole, a gaming and virtual production evangelist, and director of product marketing for Helix Core at Perforce Software, spoke with MESA about what the company offers that’s unique in the business, how it’s positioned to be a boon for companies in the virtual production space, and what to expect from its Helix DAM digital asset management solution.

MESA: How did Perforce first come on the scene, what was the impetus for the company’s launch?

Cole: Perforce came onto the scene in 1995 with our first product, a version control system for developers that worked for both source code and binary files. The other solutions on the market were not able to compete with the speed at which Perforce could successfully version and deliver these files to large teams. It was dubbed ‘the fast version control.’ With the software always being free for small teams, and its excellent handling of binary files, it really took off in the game development industry.

MESA: What do Perforce products offer that competitors’ don’t, what makes the company a go-to for DevOps solutions?

Cole: Perforce is a go-to because our tools help teams solve the toughest DevOps challenges at scale. For example, our Helix Core Versioning & Collaboration Suite provides teams with an efficient, secure, and scalable way to work in tandem. Other versioning tools on the market simply cannot handle the scale demanded by the types of assets being created in the media & entertainment space — such as the massive binary files generated by game engines like Unreal and Unity.

Additionally, we help enable effective collaboration for teams who are largely working remotely.

MESA: How has Perforce and its tools kept pace with the needs of virtual productions, and where does the company see this part of the industry headed next?

Cole: Virtual production is fascinating because it is still in its infancy. While some of the hiccups are still being worked out with running an efficient virtual production, especially when using an LED volume, the value of this type of filmmaking is so widely recognized you just know the technology will quickly evolve to meet the demand.

Our tools were already the top choice for teams who use game engines, but there aren’t a lot of standards for how to use version control in virtual productions — yet.

Our team is researching this new space and learning how to adjust our products so we can more elegantly fit the needs of production teams.

MESA: Unreal Engine, Microsoft, Slack, Adobe, AWS … the list of Perforce partners and integrations is long and distinguished. How important are partnerships and integrations to what Perforce does today, and what are your favorite examples?

Cole: Version control is so essential when creating and collaborating on digital assets, and yet, it is almost always the last thing creators want to think about or deal with when they are trying to make their vision come to life. These integrations are part of what has helped Perforce become a leader in the space because they let this essential functionality live in the background.

Integrations allow creators to focus on creating and using the tools they are already familiar with and rely on, but in the background keep their assets secure without needing to think about it. For virtual production, our best example of this is our integration with Unreal Engine.

MESA: What are some of Perforce’s favorite use case stories in the media and entertainment space, and why?

Cole: Our favorite use cases are always the ones where studios have tried virtual production without version control software but feel there must be a better way to get the work done. When they finally use our software, they’re able to streamline workflows and be a lot more efficient.

Here are two examples from M&E. Click here and here for two examples.

MESA: What’s next for Perforce, what advances and offerings can we expect from you next?

Cole: You should be on the lookout for Helix DAM, digital asset management. We recently released our beta and aim to have v1 out by this summer. Helix DAM is a new web-based interface, built on top of Helix Core, that helps make versioning more accessible and visual for creatives.

This makes it even easier for teams to truly have and use a single, secure, and scalable source of truth for all their digital assets. Additionally, it helps promote reuse of digital assets teams have already created. No need to start every asset from scratch.

This tool will also help streamline and secure the review process for these binary and creative assets, treating them a bit more like you would source code.

Cole will be presenting the virtual production session “Better Data Management to Keep Virtual Productions on Time and on Budget” at the May 19 Hollywood Innovation and Transformation Summit (HITS), held at the Universal Hilton in Los Angeles, and online via MESA’s virtual platform. To register click here.