The VFX studio delivered roughly 1,000 shots across the 8-part NBC and Peacock miniseries, building 73 animal types and 55 variations, running 100 environments through an Unreal Engine finishing pipeline, and carrying a scar on a juvenile's forehead all the way into adulthood.
For the visual effects studio, the horror film’s biggest scare was the schedule after taking over when MPC shut down: a full CG chimp, 104 shots and 3 months to create a believable rampage.
Half measures are never an option for the prolific filmmaker, who shares insights into his expansive work on ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash,’ including the Ash Clan’s origins, Wind Traders mythology, Spider’s expanded arc, and collaboration between Wētā FX and ILM on 3,500 VFX shots for his second epic ‘Avatar’ sequel, which won a BAFTA yesterday and is nominated for multiple VES Awards and two Oscars.
The Oscar and BAFTA-winning Senior Animation Supervisor and Senior VFX Supervisor discuss their team’s groundbreaking animation and visual effects work, including the challenging Tsyong and Medusoid creatures, on the latest record-shattering ‘Avatar’ sequel, now in theaters.
Animated Company founder and CEO Douglas McGinness III examines how AI tools are reshaping traditional visual effects workflows, from concept design and previs through roto, matchmove, and final delivery, while raising critical questions about authorship, copyright, and the preservation of storytelling craft.
For director Mike Roth and animation director Garrett Ray, getting the most from your 2D animation means you can’t limit yourself to what the rigs are capable of – you have to force them to get the result you’re after.
Latest update includes the new Nanite Foliage geometry rendering system, production-ready Procedural Content Generation and Substrate frameworks, extended MetaHuman integration, and an enhanced in-editor animation toolset.
Dimitri Vallein, a real-time 3D director and technologist, shares with AWN a comprehensive breakdown of his short film project and how it was created, animated, simulated, and rendered using UE5.
From faster keyframe editing to in-editor sculpting and dynamic rig physics, the latest UE 5.6 update brings a robust set of features that streamline animation workflows.
Epic Games’ UE 5.6 update delivers major animation upgrades, including a cleaner Curve Editor, improved Sequencer navigation, experimental morph sculpting, and dynamic rig physics that empower artists at studios of all sizes to animate faster with fewer roundtrips to DCC tools.
The ILM VFX and Groom Supervisor discusses the challenges of creating Dulcibear, the nanny, and Wolf Doctor digital characters, along with Elphaba as a bright green baby, in Jon M. Chu’s hit musical adventure.
At this year's Autodesk Univerisity, with the help of Mikros Animation, Digital Fish, and Wonder Studio, the tech giant demonstrated a slew of program feature updates and improvements across its product lineup, all designed to increase creative productivity and lower barriers for great storytelling.
Latest update features major enhancements to animation authoring, rendering, virtual production, mobile game development, and developer iteration toolsets.
Leading visualization studio helps create balance between magical wonder, grounded, convincing behaviors, and funny antics for Disney’s holiday adventure film, contributing to several sequences including the final reindeer battle.
VFX Supervisor Wojciech Zielinski talks about adding depth, breadth, and grit to the 2,596 visual effects shots produced for the second season of the hit Paramount+ sci-fi series, adapted from one of the most popular video game franchises of all time.
CG animation producer Shelley Smith and VFX supervisor Freddy Chaleur discuss how DNEG Animation perfected the not very Shakespearean process of staying on model while animating the extreme poses of a furry cat, based on iconic 2D comic designs, that can eat an entire pizza in one bite.
The co-founder discusses the loss of his business partner, Jan Rogowski, and the studio’s transition from theme park films to feature films centered around an interesting creative niche: animated cats.
The studio’s move further supports its Canadian clients in VFX, feature animation, and games while tapping local talent.
LA-based Iranian stop-motion artist discusses his move from Iran to the U.S., his unexpected entry into stop-motion animation and his recently launched Motion Control Kit’s capabilities.
The Finnish gaming giant, with Waste Creative and in-house production studio This Thing of Ours, create a 60-sec animation that showcases a miniature diorama and a scene from the game brought to life on a 1-meter high cake with help from Emma Jayne Cake Design.
Hailing from Epic Games, Original Force and Wētā FX, the 28-year industry veteran will oversee and guide the studio’s technological vision and exploration of real-time workflows to produce feature-quality animation.
Check out the breakdown reel - as main visual effects vendor, the studio enhanced the series’ haunting atmosphere, mysterious disappearances and weird phenomena, adding to its chilling backdrop both literally and figuratively.
Directed by Jay Walker, the spot tapped studios’ technical expertise using CG, LED volume shoot and traditional VFX to visually realize a young girl’s dream.
AI-assisted production workflow designed for kids’ animation production features text-to-3D motion, motion-to-motion retransfer and text or animatic-to-motion retrieval.
For Simon Hughes and his Union VFX team, Yorgos Langthimos’ dark comedy, a stunningly designed visual maelstrom, required something completely different from a typical VFX project, including odd, surgically created hybrid animals using as much actual footage as possible, integration of plates shot with 3 different film stocks, 11 enormous wrap-around LED screens, 50s style painted backdrops, and some really crazy colored skies.
