Creative teams in animation, video, and virtual production face ever-growing complexity. As asset libraries balloon and project timelines shrink, bottlenecks in workflow and version control can stifle momentum. Artists, developers, and producers alike need seamless collaboration, scalable storage, and instant access to the right files at the right time.
Perforce
Perforce offers a high-performance version control platform purpose-built for the demands of media and entertainment production.
At the heart of Perforce is P4 (formerly Helix Core), a centralized system that manages every digital asset in your production pipeline—from source code to 3D textures—with scale, speed, and security. P4 is trusted by award-winning VFX and animation studios for enabling teams to move faster, collaborate easier, and focus more on creativity than technical logistics.
Studios like Halon Entertainment have made the switch from Git to Perforce for precisely this reason. Halon, a full-service visualization studio behind major titles like Avatar, needed a solution that didn’t slow artists down or compromise large file management. The result? A staggering reduction in project startup time—from two days to just twenty minutes.
How Perforce Helps Media Teams Move Faster
Perforce empowers every stakeholder across the production lifecycle. Developers get robust versioning and branching. Artists access the latest files without diving into technical tools. Operators and project managers gain transparency, governance, and speed—all while eliminating common friction points caused by disconnected tools or manual processes.
With Perforce P4, creative teams are no longer limited by file size, asset complexity, or legacy workflows. Instead, they’re free to iterate faster, collaborate globally, and scale operations with confidence.
Key Features of Perforce P4
Below are the core capabilities that make Perforce P4 the version control system of choice for media and entertainment teams:
- Access Control: Define fine-grained permissions across repositories, projects, and teams for secure collaboration.
- Asset Versioning: Track every change across all file types—whether code, animation assets, audio, or large binary files.
- Branching and Merging: Set up flexible workflows to manage production, staging, and experimental versions of any asset.
- Cloud Support: Deploy on-premises, in the cloud, or hybrid environments to meet your studio’s specific infrastructure needs.
- Collaboration at Scale: Designed to support hundreds of users working in parallel, with conflict resolution and visibility baked in.
- Cross-Platform Support: Works seamlessly on Windows, macOS, and Linux for both technical and creative teams.
- Integrations: Connect with Unreal Engine, popular IDEs, and CI/CD tools to enhance your existing pipeline.
- Large File Support: Handle massive media files without performance degradation—essential for 4K/8K video, game cinematics, and VFX pipelines.
- Mobile + Remote Access: Enable global teams to work securely from anywhere, with remote access tools and cloud capabilities.
- Single Source of Truth: Centralize your digital assets in one system with full audit trails, rollback options, and traceability.
Each feature works in harmony to eliminate workflow silos and give studios the operational flexibility to meet aggressive production deadlines without sacrificing quality.
Getting Started with Perforce
Getting started with Perforce P4 is straightforward. Whether you’re migrating from Git or building your studio infrastructure from scratch, Perforce offers onboarding support, training, and enterprise-grade documentation. Teams can deploy P4 in the cloud or on-prem, with guidance tailored to animation pipelines, game development, or virtual production workflows.
Halon’s setup, for example, used a depot-per-project model on a centralized P4 server—streamlining permissions, reducing errors, and removing redundant steps. The outcome? More time for artistry and less time managing file chaos.
Now that we have the latest [Perforce P4] on the cloud, we cut our project startup time from two days to twenty minutes.
Rogerio Gasi, Director of Engineering, Halon Entertainment
According to TechValidate, 82% of users rate P4’s scalability as best in class—and many report 100% ROI within just two years.
Ready to Future-Proof Your Studio?
Whether you’re building immersive experiences in Unreal Engine or orchestrating global post-production workflows, Perforce helps teams of all sizes move faster, collaborate better, and scale smarter.
Talk to a Perforce expert today and bring your next vision to life—without version control getting in the way.
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