# Shared Reference Boards for Studio Art Teams > Soleil Clusters is a shared reference board for studio art teams: an infinite canvas in the browser where every artist drops reference into the same board live, the art director comments directly on the image, and one link opens a read-only view. One plan covers the whole workspace, so there are no per-seat licences. _Source: https://clusters.soleilpictures.com/tools/shared-reference-board · Updated 2026-10-02_ One live wall of reference for a concept, VFX, game or 3D team — added to by everyone, opened from one link, with notes pinned to the image they are about. ## Why a reference wall stops working at team size A desktop reference app is built for one artist on one machine. The board is a file; whoever made it has the latest version; everyone else has a screenshot of it from Tuesday. That is fine for a personal study sheet and wrong for a production, where the same reference has to steer six artists, survive a supervisor’s notes, and still be findable when the sequence comes back for revisions. A shared board moves the wall to a URL: one source, edited live, open on any workstation without installing anything — locked-down studio machines included. - One board at a URL, not a file on one machine - Live cursors and presence show who is in the board - Nothing to install on studio workstations ## Notes that stay on the image Feedback in a chat thread drifts away from the picture it is about. In Clusters a comment pins to the card it is about and moves with it, so “push the rim light” sits beside the exact frame — with a thread, @mentions, and a resolve once it is handled. When the team has to choose, put a vote card beside each option and read the room without a meeting. Reviewers you invite comment and vote free. - Comments pinned to a card, a group, or a spot on the canvas - Threads, @mentions and resolve - Vote cards for “which of these” decisions ## Organised the way a studio thinks Nest a cluster per character, environment or shot and the project stays navigable at hundreds of references. Tags cut across the nesting: type a tag as a character, a setting or a thing, and its view gathers every reference carrying it from anywhere in the workspace. Non-destructive adjustments — black and white for reading values, warmth, contrast — and swatches sampled off any image keep the reference working as reference, not just a gallery. - Nested clusters per character, environment or shot - Typed tags gather a character’s references across boards - Black-and-white value checks, and swatches sampled off any image ## One plan for the team, not a licence per seat Clusters has no per-seat charges at all. Editors are free on every plan, and every limit is charged to the workspace owner: the free plan gives the workspace 50 cards, with each cluster counting as one, shared by everyone working in it. Creator lifts that ceiling for the whole workspace at once and adds any file type with no per-file size limit — so a team of six pays for one plan, not six. ## Where a desktop app is still the right call If an artist needs reference floating always-on-top over their paint app on a flight, a local desktop app like PureRef does that and Clusters does not — it needs a connection and lives in a browser tab. Plenty of studios keep both: PureRef for the personal study sheet beside the canvas, and a shared Clusters board for the reference the team has to agree on. ## How a studio sets one up 1. **Make the project’s board** — Create one cluster for the project and nest a cluster inside it per discipline or asset — characters, environments, props, FX. 2. **Invite the team** — Invite artists as editors by email or with an invite link. Editors are free on every plan, and everyone lands in the same live board. 3. **Pull reference in bulk** — Select everything in a folder and drag it in at once, paste image links, or bring in video and PDFs. Everything lands as cards you can arrange. 4. **Mark what matters** — Comment on a card or a group, tag references by character or setting, and put a vote card beside each option when the team has to pick one. 5. **Show the supervisor** — Send a view-only link — no account needed, set to expire after 7 or 30 days if you like — or invite them to comment. ## What it costs Start free. Pay when you outgrow it. **Free — $0 forever** - **50 cards** to build with - No separate limit on clusters — each one counts as one of your cards - Free collaboration — invite editors to any cluster **Creator — $25/mo, or $20/mo billed annually** - Unlimited cards - Any file type - No size limits, on a 100GB drive One Creator plan covers the whole workspace — everyone you invite builds at your limits, and there are no per-seat charges. Compare the plans side by side: https://clusters.soleilpictures.com/pricing ## Frequently asked questions ### What is the best way for an art team to share reference boards? Put the reference in one board everyone can open and edit at once, instead of passing files around. Clusters does this in the browser: artists add reference live, comments pin to the image they are about, and a view-only link shows the board to anyone without an account. ### Do the artists I invite need to pay? No. Editors are free on every plan. Limits are charged to the workspace owner, so one Creator plan lifts the ceiling for everyone working in that workspace — there are no per-seat charges. ### Can a client or supervisor see the board without an account? Yes. A view-only link opens the board in any browser with no account, can include its nested clusters, and can expire after 7 or 30 days. To comment or vote, invite them instead — that is free too. ### Can we bring our PureRef boards over? Not as .pur files — that is PureRef’s own local format. Export the images, or gather the originals, select them all and drag them onto a board in one go, then rebuild the layout. On Creator you can also attach the .pur file itself to the board. ### Does it work offline? No. Clusters is a browser workspace and needs a connection. In exchange the board is backed up and identical on every machine and for every artist. ### Is it free? Free for 50 cards across the workspace — each cluster counts as one — with free editors. Creator removes the card cap and adds any file type; see “What it costs” on this page.