CG Garage

Multitalented VFX artist Alex Nice's career began in the very early days of 3D Studio on a 386 computer — complete with vigorous turbo button action. After a rebellious phase as an amateur tattoo artist, he settled into a role as a 3D generalist at Sway Studio via a stint in courtroom animations. Alex recently served as art director for innovative effects studio Magnopus, alongside previous podcas...

Like Chris, Marientina Gotsis spent her childhood in Greece, growing up on a very limited TV diet of imported American shows and old movies. And, like Chris, Marientina has a strong interest in virtual reality, and how computer-generated experiences can help us experience the real world. Coming from an artistic background, Marientina worked on the University of Illinois' CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtu...

For visual effects supervisor Jay Barton, a chance to work on the Fate of the Furious was a dream come true. As well as having over 18 years experience in visual effects, he's a car fanatic who knows high-performance autos inside-out — literally. Fresh from a visit to China, where DD's presence is increasing, Jay chatted to Chris about his career trajectory, from creating animated videos of enviro...

The Immersive Reality in Architecture conference , which took place in Venice earlier this month, focuses on the application of VR and AR in the world of visualization and design. This panel discussion, led by CGarchitect's Jeff Mottle, tackles the pros and cons of these emergent technologies. CG Labs' Chris Nichols, and Chaos Group's CCO Lon Grohs are among the guests, as well as Patricio Navarro...

Multiple Oscar winner, modern musical and box office smash La La Land has divided audiences. Is it a shameless and unsubtle Happy Meal of nostalgia? Or does it use cinema, musicals and popular culture as a launchpad to tell a human story of growth and transformation? In this podcast, Chris and film buff Dan Thron (aka the Martini Giant) talk about the film's successes and failings. In doing so, th...

The untimely passing of revolutionary architect Zaha Hadid last year has left a big hole in the world of architecture. Filling it is Patrik Schumacher, now a principal at Zaha Hadid Architects, and one of the world's most respected architects in his own right. In this deep dive into the theory and practice of architecture, Patrik talks about how architects preempted computer aided design in the 19...

If you've seen Chaos Group's showreel, you'll be familiar with Unit Image's work. The Parisian visual effects studio has created entertaining and witty commercials for Peugeot, Cartier, and Canal Plus. As it was founded by gamers, it's also produced gritty trailers for AAA titles such as The Crew , The Division , and For Honor . Fresh from their presentation at FMX, Unit Image's slightly hungover...

Chris's input into this year's THU digital arts festival has resulted in a focus on architecture. As prep, he invited prospective speakers Keely Colcleugh and Fredy Castellanos, from creative visualization studio Kilograph, to the podcast studio. Founder and CEO Keely dropped out of the prestigious Rice University to work with renowned architect Rem Koolhaas, and her multidisciplinary career has c...

An early start in stop motion 8mm film making propelled Aaron Sims on a career trajectory through Hollywood. He assisted with the gooey practical effects for cult 80s movies such as "From Beyond," "Evil Dead 2," and "Gremlins 2." The sleazy, show-stealing worms for "Men in Black," were created by Aaron, and he applied his knowledge of prosthetics and puppetry to the CGI robots in Steven Spielberg'...

The FMX digital arts festival in Stuttgart, Germany, forms a bustling backdrop for this live podcast. Host Chris is joined by Chaos Group's co-founder and CEO Vladimir "Vlado" Koylazov, and Dabarti's Tomasz Wyszolmirski, whose feedback has been instrumental in the development of V-Ray GPU. Vlado talks about how GPU computing has evolved, and reveals V-Ray's new game-changing hybrid GPU/CPU feature...

Sweden's long, harsh winters compelled Johan Thorngren to pursue creative endeavours, and after a stint in advertising he accepted an enviable position with ILM in San Francisco. As a generalist, Johan's job is to pick up VFX shots which don't fit into the typical pipeline. His workload has increased from a handful of shots on movies such as Star Wars: Episode III, to thousands for Avengers: Age o...

Architect Thom Mayne should need no introduction — but here's a potted history for the uninitiated. A graduate of the University of Southern California and Harvard, Thom co-founded Morphosis Architects in 1972. This experimental studio rejected contemporary ideas of architecture, instead using metal and concrete to create angular buildings which reflect their purpose and surroundings. Despite his...

Technical artist, designer and Nick Offerman lookalike Dave Carlson is Chris' guest for this week's podcast. Dave spent his youth perfecting his skills with airbrushes and Amigas, before a demo on an SGI supercomputer, and a fascination with "Babylon 5's" VFX, lit a fire on a career in visual effects. Dave has worked on music videos, commercials and feature films, joining Chris at Digital Domain f...

Kurt Akeley is the genius behind the world's second ever laser printer, SGI supercomputers, and the OpenGL 3D graphics software specification. Now, Kurt has turned his enviable talent to light field photography as CTO of Lytro. Light fields are on the verge of becoming the next big thing, with applications in everything from visual effects, to VR, to astrophotography. It's a complicated subject wh...

In this podcast, Chris talks to Erik Altman and O'Brien Chalmers, CEO and president of Steelblue, along with Mike Brown. This ambitious San Francisco-based arch viz firm has proved itself a master of just about every visualization medium available, including photography, realtime renders, virtual reality and 3D printing. They explain how these different techniques essentially do the same thing: te...

Polymath Rudy Rucker is the author of some 40 books, including a many science-fiction novels, and he's a computer scientist, a painter, and a mathematician. In the 1980s his novels dealt with issues of identity and reality in an age increasingly dominated by computers, and helped found the cyberpunk movement. Rudy is also a relative of podcast host Chris. As well as blood ties they have a lot in c...

Iconic monster with a heart of gold Kong is back on the big screens in "Kong: Skull Island"—and this time he's bigger than ever. For this podcast, Chris managed to tempt Jeff White, the movie's visual effects supervisor, away from wrangling enormous creatures and into talking about how exactly his team brought Kong to life. Jeff goes into great detail about the elements which sell the character to...

Eric Durst's career path has gone hand-in-hand with the evolution of visual effects from the early 80s to the present day. This CalArts animation graduate's first job was in commercials in New York, which proved to be a hotbed of early visual effects techniques. He moved to Los Angeles, where he animated the disc battle for landmark 1982 movie "Tron," and became a key employee at Dream Quest, one...

Trojan Horse was a Unicorn - aka THU - isn't like other digital arts gatherings. Rather than taking over a crowded convention center, it takes place in a luscious beach resort in Portugal. Headline speakers, or "Knights," aren't treated like VIPs, but instead mingle with crowds. And the emphasis for guests is on personal growth and development, as opposed to being wowed by technology or targeted b...

Chris Wells has worked on some of the biggest films of the past 20 years, including "300," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," and "Captain America: The First Avenger." Although Chris wanted to be a park ranger, he was drawn to computing in the most 80s way possible: a nerd friend, Sigue Sigue Sputnik albums, and software pirated via BBS and five-and-a-quarter floppies. A chance encounter with...

This candid, illuminating podcast is two hours of pure heaven for anyone interested in the history of special and visual effects. Michael Fink's career began almost 40 years ago, when he created the computers for nuclear thriller "The China Syndrome." Over the next few years, he'd sit in a darkened room with a tesla coil for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," raid components store Apex Electronics t...

CG Labs is very proud of Vladimir "Vlado" Koylazov's recent Scientific and Technical Academy Award win. In fact, Chaos Group's co-founder had barely stepped off the red carpet when Chris and Lon wrangled him into the CG Garage recording studio for this special podcast. As well as talking about the sci-tech awards, Vlado goes into detail about what to expect from Chaos Group's latest 3.5 update to...

Visual effects artist and supervisor Daniel Trbovic hails from former Yugoslavia, where he learned 3D Studio on a 386 computer in the early 90s. He then ventured to Portugal, where he created a surprisingly long-lived lotto jingle, restored old movies about Lisbon, and added noxious gasses to sci-fi movie "Low Flying Aircraft." In the United States Daniel spent time at Real FX in Dallas, did two l...

"Plug" neatly combines sweeping cinematic visuals with an intriguing tale of identity in a post-apocalyptic future, and it's one of the best short films you'll ever see. With over 600,000 views on the internet and a host of awards, it's proof that shorts can be every bit as good as their feature-length brethren. The man behind "Plug" is concept artist and director David Levy, who joined Chris for...

Steven Lisberger's 1982 movie Tron was way ahead of its time. As the first film to have major CG set replacement and full CG shots, it paved the way for the likes of "Jurassic Park," "Toy Story," "Avatar," and many more. Its story investigated ideas of cyberspace and simulated worlds a long time before the internet and virtual reality became part of popular culture. One of the men behind "Tron" wa...