FMX 2025 Releases Final Program Update, Teaser Shorts Series

The industry converges in Stuttgart tomorrow, May 6, for Day 1 of FMX 2025, which runs through May 9. The conference has released a series of short teaser videos, starting with a dive into cinematic images and Unreal Engine with Sara Batista (The Witcher 4) and Jim Geduldick (Here, Criminal). Also released was a final update of talks, presentations, and special activities.

VFX news includes sessions on Mufasa: The Lion King, Dune: Prophecy, and G20. The FMX track The Power of Collaboration will cover business and career aspects as well as matters of community and inclusion. Multiple technical presentations revolve around shaping light and shade, and composer Scot Stafford will explain how music and sound can become one. Finally, the newly created FMX Experience Zone enables visitors to explore brand new XR applications.

Updated panel details include:

The State of VFX

• Mufasa: The Lion King - The Art of Digital life - VFX supervisor Audrey Ferrara explores the technical innovations that have enabled increasingly lifelike rendering of fur, muscle dynamics, and expressive capabilities.
• Creating the Spaceport Environment for Dune: Prophecy - Apollonia Hartmann (Accenture Song) and Peter Lames (Accenture Song) speak on the film.
• Reshaping Cape Town: Behind the Action-Packed Thriller G20 - VFX supervisor Alessandro Cioffi (Trixter) go behind the scenes to share the creative and technical challenges his team overcame, with highlights on how Cinesite’s VFX enhanced the film’s realism.

The Power of Collaboration

• Creative Resilience: Women Redefining Success in Animation and VFX - The panel of women delves into the unique challenges and triumphs of navigating the industry.
• Studio Insights - Dave Gougé invites panelists to talk candidly about the latest business trends and issues facing the industry. Panelists include David LI (Dream Machine FX) Scott Ross (VFX executive), Christina Caspers-Roemer (Trixter), Henrik Fett (OPSIS) and Eva Mautino (Important Looking Pirates).
• Building a Career without Borders: the Power of Global Connections - The panel is a one-stop shop on how to create, nurture and benefit from the global community to future-proof careers in VFX and animation.
• Strategies for Success In Today's Job Market - The panel will discuss where the industry is and how it impacts the job market. Five industry experts will share key hints and tips and offer actionable insights for VFX professionals.

Tools of Tomorrow

• An Overview of HDR Image-Based Lighting Techniques and Best Practices - In his talk, FMX program chair Paul Debevec will overview the key developments in HDRI lighting, some of its most iconic use cases, and how it can best be practiced today.
• Painting with Light: Creative Image-Based Lighting for Art and Industry - In the session, Mark Segasby (Lightmap) explores how artists can use IBL as a creative medium of light. He’ll discuss how shaping light, color, and exposure allows artists to tell stories, define moods, and highlight design.
• Modern Physical Shading - Lukas Stockner (Blender Foundation) will start with the physical origins of the effects that we're trying to model, go over the components that make up these modern PBR shaders, and finally look at how this is implemented specifically in Blender's production path tracer Cycles.
• Accelerating Artistry - Krishnan Ramachandran (Intel Corporation) will talk about how Intel Rendering Toolkit is integrated into Blender Cycles. He will also explore the kernel libraries in Intel's Rendering Toolkit like Embree, for ray tracing, Open Image Denoise for Denoising, and Open Path Guiding Library for path guiding.

Designing Spaces

• Breaking the Sound Barrier: A Composer’s Journey From Ultraman to AI - The talk explores what happens when composers embrace new tools and disciplines to redefine what sound can do.

Experience Zone

• May 6
  • Quill & VR-Art by Dan Franke, Spacelime Studios
  • XR-IT Trans Realities Lab by Design Academy Eindhoven
  • Race Yourselves by University of Bath is a cutting-edge VR experience for transforming workout sessions into fun activities: you can navigate the game using only head movements and explore a set of far-off landscapes.

• May 7
  • “Crew Together XR” by Polycular offers immersive XR missions that elevate teamwork, communication and decision-making. Crew Together XR is ideal for innovation-driven companies.
  •  “Ganimateer by Moverse is a toolset for fluent 3D animated character creation.

• May 8
  • PANEURAMA Zone: Funded by the European Union, the PANEURAMA alliance aims to bridge the gap between higher educational institutions and the ever-evolving needs of the animation, games, and VFX industries. 

• May 9
  • “Carbon Dream$ Land” by Pixelcloud is a satirical, mission-based multiplayer co-op action game in virtual reality. Players work together using their "renewable energy packs" to take down foes and solve physical puzzles, while sharpening their perception of misinformation about the climate crisis in a fun way!
  • “Fate of the Minotaur” by Filmakademie BW, Animationsinstitut R&D: In this  scalable, immersive VR Experience, up to 4 players descend into the mythical labyrinth and dive into the Minotaur’s tragic story.

Source: FMX 2025

Journalist, antique shop owner, aspiring gemologist—L'Wren brings a diverse perspective to animation, where every frame reflects her varied passions.