CG Garage

Originally from Bulgaria, Ioanna Ivanova was inspired by Pixar and Tangled to pursue a career in CG. Having studied at Bournemouth University in the UK, she subsequently moved to London where she works for INK, the inventive creative studio that's rendered everything from funny furry planes to amazing Maseratis. In this inspirational podcast, Ioanna talks about the importance of networking and mee...

There's a surprising amount of tech in Laika's movies. The Portland, Oregon-based studio still makes use of its intricate hand-crafted stop-motion techniques, but it's increasingly augmenting them with CG elements, 3D printing, and even virtual production. Jeff Stringer, Laika's director of production technology, reveals the advantages of combining the physical and the digital. Jeff also talks abo...

Adam Sidwell is pioneering a new generation of entertainment. His CG career began working with Chris on I, Robot , and he went on to create effects for movies including King Kong , Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End , and Warcraft: The Beginning . Now, Adam has taken his modular approach to VFX into real-time to create AR, VR, and online content featuring Justin Bieber, The Weeknd, and Kaska...

CGarchitect has become a massive part of the global archviz community. The all-in-one site incorporates LinkedIn-style job listings, the latest industry insights, and a super-smart AI-powered gallery that curates impressive renders from thousands of submissions. And now, CGarchitect has become part of the Chaos family. In this podcast, Chris is joined by CGarchitect founder Jeff Mottle as he prepa...

Darin Grant is back! And a lot has changed in the three years since the Animal Logic group chief technology officer and general VFX genius last recorded with Chris. As always, Darin offers expert industry insight into the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on working from home, cloud computing, and how digital content is created and consumed. Darin also details his role as director of the Electronic...

Is Huxley the new Star Wars ? This week, Chris chats to Ben Mauro, the film and game concept artist who single-handedly created Huxley , a comic book set in a richly detailed post-apocalyptic sci-fi universe. Thanks to the power of NFTs, Huxley has evolved beyond the pages of a graphic novel into something far bigger, with a film from Marvel producer Avi Arad in the works, plus trading cards, a po...

Joining Chris for this week's podcast is Matteo Santoro, an energetic, enthusiastic, and versatile filmmaker who might just be revolutionizing the way movies are made. After graduating from art college, Matteo created opening titles and VFX for film including The Incredible Hulk , Aliens vs Predator - Requiem , and X-Men Origins: Wolverine . At the same time, he created his own sci-fi IPs, includi...

Judith Crow has seen both sides of the effects industry. After developing an enthusiasm for coding, she worked her way into Digital Domain, where she pioneered visual effects for Interview with the Vampire , Apollo 13 , Titanic , and Fight Club . Then, she switched sides and took on a role with Houdini developer SideFX. In this podcast, Judith talks about everything from her early days in communit...

This week's podcast guest, Barbara Ford Grant, is particularly inspirational. Barbara's pursuit of fine art led her into VFX, where she worked her way through companies including DreamWorks Animation, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Digital Domain, Walt Disney Studios, and immersive art platform Meow Wolf. She carved an enviable career path during this time, from digital artist to chief technology offic...

Founded by Christoph Bolten in 2007, Recom Farmhouse has become a go-to studio for automotive and product shots. The London-based studio has provided head-turning CG and retouched imagery for companies including BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Audi, while indulging in off-beat passion projects such as a moon motorcycle and an update of Back to the Future's Delorean. Christoph and managing director Richard...

After being inspired by Star Wars to pursue a career in VFX, Andrew Orloff became a technical director on South Park and worked on Joss Whedon's (un)holy trinity of Buffy the Vampire Slayer , Angel , and Firefly . After founding Zoic Studios, he's gone on to serve as VFX supervisor and creative director on some of TV's biggest shows, including Once Upon a Time , The 100 , Fringe , and For All Mank...

Richard Scott has been rocking the world of CG for more than 30 years. He began his career in graphic design, moved into 3D for broadcast and commercials, and then got involved with cutscenes for the games industry. He founded Axis Studios in 2000, and it's steadily grown to a team of 400 people working on VFX and animation for movies, TV, games, and theme parks. Richard discusses his history in C...

A lot has changed for Sonja Christoph since she last guested on the podcast back in 2019. A significant birthday prompted the talented CG generalist and matte painter to go freelance and start teaching her skills. At the same time, she's working with her husband on a new mobile game — which has the potential to branch out into other mediums such as animation and graphic novels. Sonja discusses the...

Jill Smolin has seen things you people wouldn't believe. Early computer graphics techniques on Amiga computers. CG breakthroughs at Digital Domain. Mind-blowing stereoscopy techniques in filmmaking and the advent of ultra-high-definition streamed content. All these memories will be discussed in this podcast. Jill also talks about her background in theater and how a Canadian CG character drew her i...

KitBash3D has become massive. What started as an easy way to provide concept artists with ready-made 3D assets has become an essential resource for movies and video games. KitBash3D now contains 10,000 assets in 75 kits, ranging from real-world locales to sci-fi cities, fantasy worlds, and gravity-defying spaceships. It's even been named by Fast Company as one of the most innovative gaming compani...

Stine Sørensen and Jonas Ussing have got your VFX needs covered. With a background in animation, Stine is able to create and rig characters, while Jonas can handle the 3D pipeline. They've worked on everything from award-winning games to Hollywood movies to frenetic videogame trailers. But, they also happen to be a husband-and-wife team with two children. In this podcast, Stine and Jonas — aka Spa...

This week, Zap Andersson returns to the CG Garage podcast — and he's brought a whole new theme tune with him. Nestled among Klein bottles, Nixie tubes, and Kung Fury posters, Zap reveals his latest passion: streaming live music sessions on Twitch, and tells Chris how it's given him a new approach to the creative process. Zap also delves into new open-source standards in computer graphics, such as...

Aliens and The Terminator inspired Mariana Acuña Acosta to get into movie-making — and now, she's on the cutting edge of new production methods. After working on movies including The Day After Tomorrow , Planet Terror , and Green Lantern , Mariana joined Foundry's Media and Production department. She then founded JoltVR to create virtual reality experiences, and Glassbox Technologies, which specia...

Volume capture is fast becoming one of the easiest and most practical ways to transform real people into digital assets. Pioneering this new field is Metastage, a company that captures performers on a state-of-the-art stage and then turns them into 3D content that you can play back as AR and VR experiences on even the most humble hardware. Joining Chris this week is Christina Heller, Metastage's C...

Katrina Salicrup's story packs as many twists and revelations as a finely crafted thriller. After studying art, she worked as a Flame artist for companies including Method Studios, The Mission Studio, and Wieden + Kennedy. Following the birth of her daughter, her life took an unexpected turn, and she began writing as a hobby — which has grown into an award-winning podcast. A natural storyteller, K...

2022 began with exciting news: Chaos is merging with Enscape. Referred to as a slam-dunk for both companies, the business move will combine Chaos' award-winning photorealistic ray tracing expertise with Enscape's flourishing knowledge of real-time rendering. But what will it mean for the companies, their software, and their customers? In this extra-special podcast, host Chris Nichols joins Chaos C...

Peter Baustaedter's Hollywood career is an adventure worthy of a movie. After cracking the demoscene in Austria, he took a chance and wrote to Digital Domain — only for them to offer him a job. From here, he worked on a string of movies with groundbreaking VFX: Apollo 13 , Dante's Peak , The Fifth Element , Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within , Sin City , King Kong , and Avatar . In this extraordina...

By day, Raf Grassetti works at Sony Computer Entertainment's Santa Monica Studio, where he art directs the God of War games. But there's more to Raf than epic videogames: he's also carved a successful path in the world of NFTs, with his hyperreal sculpts becoming hot virtual commodities. Raf talks about his NFT artwork and how he's tailored pieces — such as his Crypto History sculpts of Elon Musk,...

Mallory Yund always knew she wanted to work in the entertainment industry — and now she's a post-producer on some of the biggest shows in the world. Beginning in Kansas, she moved to LA, where she slept on a couch (for three years!), worked in restaurants, and became an extra. After PAing on feature films, she worked her way into post-production, where her organizational skills and technical know-...

In this episode, we get a deep dive into the efficiencies of Goodbye Kansas' pipeline, and how they grew their team from 4 to 12 TDs. Dan and Erik discuss how they started using V-Ray for Houdini, Solaris, and Hydra. They explain how USD is not just a new file format, but a complete change in the way people think about pipelines. We get into a lot of technical details about the advantages of USD,...