CG Garage

Colin Green took the computer graphics skills he learned from his architecture education to help start Pixel Liberation Front. While the company is no longer around, it was one of the first to focus on envisaging movies with an art form known as previsualization. Colin talks about how previs was pioneered in films such as Fight Club, Panic Room, and Minority Report, how it's become an essential pa...

If you've played any AAA videogame in the last few years, chances are you've seen Allegorithmic's tech in action. Headed up by Sebastien Deguy, the company's Substance Painter and Substance Designer help artists create and fine-tune realistic textures which aren't repetitive or obviously procedurally generated. In this podcast, recorded at the Vertex conference in London, Sebastien tells Chris how...

Rob Redman is a man of many skills: motion graphics and 3D art, guitar and amp building, "The Cinema 4D Guy" on social media. In his current role he edits 3D World magazine, and helped conceive and organize the Vertex CGI event in London — which is where Chris delivered a keynote speech and recorded this podcast. In this chat, Rob talks about how he and his team have created a unique and all-inclu...

This week's podcast is another THU two-parter, recorded with Unity's Josh Naylor and Angus Mackay, and Oculus Medium's Brian Sharp. As an evangelist for Unity, Josh has one of the best jobs in the world. He travels to global conferences and high-tech organizations — including NASA — to discuss the benefits of the Unity engine. In his three years at the company, he's seen Unity evolve from a game d...

Six years ago, Chaos Group developer Boris Simandoff had a dream: that cloud rendering could be as simple as clicking a button. Today, that dream is becoming a reality, with fast and easy cloud rendering seamlessly integrated into V-Ray for Rhino, Revit and SketchUp — and more products coming soon. In this podcast, Boris tells Chris how he and his team at Chaos Group overcame some of the headaches...

A bottle of Trader Joe's Blended Scotch Whisky fuels Chris and Dan Thron for this in-depth discussion of Blade Runner 2049. Like its 1982 predecessor, 2049 is an eye-catching and thought-provoking movie which tackles themes of identity, emotion and mortality in a dystopic, dysfunctional metropolis. And, like its forebear, it's underperformed at the box office — although it's clearly destined for c...

Chris and Lon jetted off to San Francisco to record this podcast with Adobe product manager Zoana Gee, and engineering director Ross McKegney. They reveal how they've created Adobe Dimension, formerly known as Project Felix, a clever box of tricks which marries photorealistic 3D imagery with Adobe's trademark ease of use Of course, 3D is notoriously complicated, and Zorana and Ross discuss the mac...

Recorded at THU last year, this podcast features another awesome foursome of guests: Ludger Pfanz, from Karlsruhe University of Art and Design, Kelli Townley from Oculus Medium, and Ciaran Wills and Mach Kobayashi from Google Tilt Brush. Ludger spent 25 years making documentary films about indigenous people around the world, before becoming a film lecturer. This knowledgeable and philosophical exp...

Since Chris and Lon were in Sofia for a week to hang out at our headquarters in snowy Sofia we decided to sit down with the man behind the V in V-Ray. Vlado, no stranger to the CG Garage, spends some time with Chris to give our listeners a better idea about all the work going into the next version of V-Ray, and beyond. Many people already know a bit about these features, but there are also many ot...

This week's CG Garage is a special episode because I got a chance to sit down with Alex McDowell, the founder of World Building Institute and Experimental Design. You might have seen his name pop up in Fast Company and Wired from time to time, and it's no mystery why they want to talk to him. On top of his current roles, which we'll get into in a minute, this is a man who helped set up the Sex Pis...

They're back! Star Wars aficionados, film buffs and visual effects artists Dan Thron and Justin Fields join Chris for the second part of this follow-up to the original, divisive Last Jedi podcast. This episode continues to pore over The Last Jedi to work out if the good bits outweigh the bad, and whether director Rian Johnson can shake off the franchise's excessive baggage and build a fresh univer...

On-set data integration people fill a crucial role in the modern movie making process. They capture reference materials such as HDR images, camera data, and reference photography so effects artists can ensure their CG creations fit perfectly into the shot. As data integration lead Viki Chan explains, the job combines the glamor of traveling the world to work with a-list actors and directors, with...

Chris, Dan and David's take on The Last Jedi in podcast #156 stirred up many emotions on social media – especially among listener Justin Goby Fields. In fact, Justin posed such a good take on why The Last Jedi is a good movie that Chris invited him to appear on the podcast for a two-episode discussion. In part one, Justin points out the clever ways The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi break down ch...

While the THU festival is all about bringing brilliant artists together, a lot of it couldn't happen without its media partners. In this podcast, Chris chats with some the people who help out behind the scenes. In the first part, Chris is joined by Lenovo senior product manager Greyson Davis and Gnomon chief technology officer Eric Miller. Eric is fresh from a presentation featuring Lenovo's lates...

Greg Teegarden's first role in Hollywood was suitably iconic: he designed the famous gates for Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park. From here, Greg worked as a modeler on Spielberg's ambitious seaQuest DSV TV project, then helped create effects for Titanic and cars for The Fifth Element. In this podcast, Greg talks about his career, and how his dad and uncle's collaboration on TV series Supertrain he...

As the dust settles on 2017, one question lingers on everyone's minds: was Star Wars: The Last Jedi a good movie? The critics have embraced indie auteur Rian Johnson's continuation of the new Star Wars universe, but the response from audiences and internet nerds has ranged from ecstatic, to meh, to Kylo Ren-like levels of rage. To dissect this divisive movie, Chris is joined by Star Wars revisioni...

Mobile games are big business — bigger, in fact, than their console counterparts. They're cheaper to make, require smaller teams, and they can generate huge amounts of money. In the first part of this podcast, Chris talks to John "Cip" Cipriani, senior artist at enormously successful mobile games company Supercell (Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, Boom Beach). Of course, mobile games have their own c...

Maxx Burman was destined for a career in the film industry — but how he got there is surprising. His grandfather and parents were practical effects artists, creating the groundbreaking makeup for The Wolfman and The Planet of the Apes, respectively. Helping his parents out on all-nighters gave Maxx a strong worth ethic, and a hard-earned knowledge of what happens behind the scenes in Hollywood. Bu...

Summer 1993. Jurassic Park is about to be unleashed in theatres. Meanwhile, at the Rice School of Architecture in Houston, Texas, a young student named Chris Nichols is learning how to use AutoCAD, 3dstudio v2, and Wavefront. Overseeing Chris is Shisha van Horn, a paleontologist turned architecture student, then lecturer. Chris and Shisha are reunited for this trip down memory lane. Shisha talks a...

Chaos Group has been involved in The Ningyo for about four years now, and it's finally come to fruition. The ambitious 27-minute film tells the story of Professor Marlowe, an Indiana Jones-esque cryptozoologist, as he hunts for the titular aquatic creature from Japanese folklore. In this podcast, director Miguel Ortega tells Lon and Chris about the trials and tribulations of making his movie. He a...

For this THU double bill, Chris is joined by friends old and new. In the first part, he chats with VFX artist turned arch viz expert Keely Colcleugh, and CG Architect founder Jeff Mottle — both of whom have previously featured on podcasts. They're perfect examples of how this year's THU festival embraced architectural professionals and the crucial knowledge they can bring to concept art and charac...

In this podcast, Chris talks to Corey Harper and Ramy Hanna, the co-founders of Tiltpixel. This Houston-based arch viz company has gone from two people working from home, to a thriving office filled with the latest kit - and lots of LEGOs. Corey also serves as the 2017 president of the American Society of Architectural Illustrators (ASAI), a role which will be filled in 2018 by Chaos Group CCO Lon...

For this podcast, Chris is joined by a quartet of artists, directors and filmmakers at THU festival in Portugal. The first is Manny "MANu" Carrasco. This sweet and humble artist started out in traditional animation, before going 3D for the Turok video games, and then moving into concept art for movies such as Anastasia, Prince of Egypt and Space Jam. Throughout his career, Manny has always found s...

Some 20 years ago, Chris graduated with a master's in architecture from Rice University in Houston, Texas. His thesis advisor and dean at the time was Lars Lerup, himself an esteemed architectural professor, author, artist, and designer. For this podcast, Chris and Lars are reunited in the hallowed halls of Rice School of Architecture. As someone who's seen architecture and its students completely...

Here's another pair of podcasts Chris recorded at this year's THU festival in Portugal. Kevin the Dane: The first podcast features Kevin Gøhler, better known as Kevin the Dane to V-Ray fans thanks to the tutorials and reviews on his popular YouTube channel. He also works as technical director at architectural visualization company Dimension Design ApS, and he's currently designing his own VR video...