CG Garage

Zaha Hadid Architects has always embraced technology to stay ahead of the game — even the late Zaha Hadid was herself using computers to design buildings back in the 90s. Today, the company makes use of software including Revit, Maya, V-Ray, Rhino and Grasshopper to create its iconic parametric designs, as well as lots of bespoke tools to create VR experiences and model human interactions. In this...

The CG industry is on the cusp of a dramatic shift. While ray tracing has always been the best way to achieve lifelike CG visuals, hardware and software advances are making it feasible for architects, arch viz artists and designers to use real-time engines to create astonishing imagery and VR experiences. In this podcast, Chris is joined by Chaos Group's Vice President of Product Management Phil M...

A lot has changed since Darin Grant last appeared on the CG Garage podcast back in September 2016. The VFX industry has overcome its cloud-computing fears and embraced it wholesale, making it faster and cheaper to create imagery for Hollywood movies. Darin, meanwhile, left Solid Angle to consult for various companies and is now CTO for creative digital studio Animal Logic, the company behind The L...

Gray Marshall has always wanted to tell stories. In his youth, he was inspired to pursue CG by Tron and Pixar's Luxo Jr. , but when he studied film at USC he fell in love with the physical process of filmmaking. After dabbling in motion control cameras, he joined Digital Domain as a VFX supervisor and then founded his own company, Gray Matter FX. Today, Gray has brought all his industry experience...

Every Saturday, karate sensei Robert Christophe teaches kids (including Chris's) to find their inner strength and the virtues of tolerance, discipline and accepting other people. Now, Robert is taking his Mr Miyagi-like leadership skills to filmmaking via New Voices Academy, a summer camp for kids aged 11 to 14. Based out of his Burbank, California dojo, Robert will guide attendees through the pro...

Every Saturday, karate sensei Robert Christophe teaches kids (including Chris's) to find their inner strength and the virtues of tolerance, discipline and accepting other people. Now, Robert is taking his Mr Miyagi-like leadership skills to filmmaking via New Voices Academy, a summer camp for kids aged 11 to 14. Based out of his Burbank, California dojo, Robert will guide attendees through the pro...

Every Saturday, karate sensei Robert Christophe teaches kids (including Chris's) to find their inner strength and the virtues of tolerance, discipline and accepting other people. Now, Robert is taking his Mr Miyagi-like leadership skills to filmmaking via New Voices Academy, a summer camp for kids aged 11 to 14. Based out of his Burbank, California dojo, Robert will guide attendees through the pro...

Homelessness is a growing issue in Los Angeles. The number of people without anywhere to live increases every year, but at the same time, the city is building conspicuous billion-dollar high rises. Architectural illustrator, filmmaker and returning podcast guest Craig Shimahara believes he's found a way to help solve this complex and oft-overlooked problem. Craig's mission begins with Architecture...

Game of Thrones' opening credits sequence has become one of the most iconic in the history of TV. Every week, millions of people around the world have their appetites whetted and spines tingled by the famous theme music and an exploration of an animated 3D map of Westeros, complete with the themes and locations of the forthcoming episode. In this (spoiler-free!) podcast, Art Director and Head of 3...

This week, Chris is joined by energetic and super smart developer Kat Harris. Kat studied Computer Science Engineering at the University of Virginia, where she also went from pixel artist to vice president of the Student Game Developers club. She integrated numerous technologies into the Unity game engine in her role as Technical and Gaming Evangelist at Microsoft and became the world's first fema...

Afonso Salcedo had just stepped off the plane at LAX when Chris wrestled him into the CG Garage booth to record this podcast. Afonso's arrival in Los Angeles is another giant leap in a daring transatlantic career which has taken him from the graveyard shift on the VFX of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban to working with one of the world's biggest movie stars. In this podcast, Afonso tells h...

Since the mid-90s, Greg Lynn has pioneered the use of technology in architecture. When the rest of the industry was using formZ, Greg was experimenting with non-architectural software such as Alias and Maya, using nurbs and fluid sims to create radically different, organic designs. He's seen masters of the set square become mouse-and-keyboard amateurs and happy accidents become established techniq...

Through his globe-trotting career, softly-spoken Cris Blyth has helped give the world Worms, flashed James Cameron and jumpstarted Kenya's visual effects industry. In this frequently hilarious podcast, he tells Chris his fascinating story. After spending his childhood programming Commodore computers, and a surprisingly fruitful excursion to the Philippines, Cris worked on then-cutting-edge FMV seq...

This week, Chris goes behind the scenes at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects. Founded in 1997, this Hollywood-based establishment has grown to a thriving and crucial part of the effects industry, with over 400 students picking up the skills which will land them hot jobs on games and movies. In this podcast, Chris is joined by Eric Miller, the school's Chief Technology Officer. His job is to ensu...

As a child, Andy Wilkoff spent his childhood pulling technology apart and reading comic books — and he's been lucky enough to follow these obsessions into his career. He picked up his first VFX gigs on the TV series Star Trek: Voyager and Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles, then worked at Digital Domain on commercials and movies including X-Men; I, Robot; The Day After Tomorrow and Stealth....

The Animatrix , Liquid Television , Ren & Stimpy - there have always been blips of mature content on the animation spectrum, but never anything like Love, Death & Robots . This new anthology kicks open the doors for adult storytelling in the medium, taking Tim Miller and David Fincher's unique influences, and letting over 14 studios run wild through topics like racism, war, free will and human nat...

Film and art have fascinated Loic Zimmermann from a young age: he drew all the time and built rocket ship sets in his back garden during his childhood in rural France. His fascination drew him towards studying CG at university, then onto work for innovative game studio Quantic Dream, and his clever method of getting the perfect tattoo won him a job at Luma Pictures in Los Angeles. As well as worki...

Known as "eSports Mom" — or "CoD Mom" — Kim Meltzer, the CEO of KidKesty Productions, is an unsung heroine of the professional gaming industry. This competitive and lucrative business can whisk kids from their bedrooms to stadiums and make them millions in a short space of time, and in this podcast, Kim tells Chris how she reassures parents that their children are in safe hands — while helping upc...

Digital Giant is using new technology to make it easier and faster to create photorealistic digital content. Joining Chris this week are the company's Operative Dallas Carroll and VFX Supervisor/Partner Felix Urquiza, who go in depth on the way the company has been set up, and how it's doing things differently. CG car work is notoriously finicky. The challenge of making vehicles look real — as wel...

Robh Ruppel has been on Chris's most-wanted podcast guest list for a long time — and it's not hard to see why. This talented designer, concept and visual development artist has a wealth of knowledge and experience, which makes this podcast utterly enthralling from start to finish. Robh tells Chris about his adventurous career so far. From his early movie experience at effects shop Boss Film Studio...

Andrew Maximov has a vision for how to change the gaming and CG industries from the ground up. His Promethean AI is a super-smart piece of software which allows designers, developers and artists to create and populate environments simply by asking for them via voice or text. It neatly cuts out the fiddly, time-consuming parts of the CG creative process, and allows users to get straight to the fun...

This week, Chris is joined by the versatile talent of John Hewitt. As a child, John was addicted to sketching and drafting everything he saw on TV, and this drove him into automobile design. After helping out on Schwarzenegger movie Eraser, John moved into visual effects and his impressive IMDb page includes credits on Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Star Trek Beyond and Alice Through the Looking...

From the age of two, Colin Aguiar has been fascinated by music. It's an obsession which has paid off: over the past 20 years he's scored numerous projects and worked with mentor Mychael Danna on films including Life of Pi. His talent caught the attention of Construct director Kevin Margo who called on his abilities to create an experimental score for his groundbreaking short film. In this podcast,...

When Kurt Lawson isn't assembling effects for some of Hollywood's biggest movies, he's in backcountry California creating astonishing long-exposure shots of the natural landscape. In this engaging podcast, he tells Chris how teenage experiments in visual effects and Olympus cameras inspired his successful career and awe-inspiring hobby. Kurt and Chris reminisce about working together at Digital Do...

From a young age, Joe Farrell knew he was destined for a career in entertainment. After helping interview musical superstars, he 'tweened for Disney and Warner Brothers animations, moved into commercials at their hedonistic peak, and then traveled to Vancouver and Los Angeles to work as a concept artist, VFX supervisor and compositor on films including Star Trek, The Wolf of Wall Street and Hereaf...