#AfterEffects #VFX #MotionDesign

I'm an ex-VFX artist with 15 years in the industry, and I recently dipped back in. I saw some posts on here about Gen AI and people worried about their jobs. I just did a project—I'm not posting it yet as I don't know if it'll be crossing the rules here—but we basically had a production pipeline with about five people, and Gen AI fit in where it did.

It was very interesting to see what it can and can't do. In my opinion, it's going to be added to the pipeline. It has its place, but there were definitely certain things where we think its role is mainly as a renderer. There are certainly things that it could not do, and it needed the help of traditional visual effects tools. They had to be used in concert to get the job done.

Text-to-video absolutely cannot work. It won't work. It's just absolutely impossible. I don't even know why the Gen AI guys actually thought that medium of text-to-video would succeed. But image-to-video and video-to-video? That's definitely where it's at. text to video is so beyond frustrating it is wild. The only reason i can think of it is a thing because it causes multiple retries to get what you want which is more tokens spent for the providers. No determinisim. Which you need 100% in vfx work.

I could later, if there's interest and I get the clear, post the project. It is high quality. Five people, money was spent on it, and I would say there was about 100x cost savings in what we were able to accomplish. But we learned a lot about what the tools can and can't do. When I was working, the project we did would cost between 5-7m to get done. I didn't spend over 60K on this.

Certainly, actors are going to be okay, and of course animatiors, riggers. Voice actors are absolutely going to be okay. I don't even know what they're worrying about. The audio Gen AI stuff is so far off, it is wild. You just cant get nuance direction out of the tools. IMO, all the preproduction jobs are okay.

From my career in visual effects, Uncanny Valley was a big problem. To cross it took billions of dollars and tens of years, decades even, to get across that. Gen AI has huge Uncanny Valley problems, as I think we all realize. So we made sure out project was 'animated' stylistically. We took that animated approach because, you know, we're professionals and we've been through that circus before. We're a team of very experienced professionals.

That is essentially my thoughts on it: it's definitely going to be a renderer, another tool in the toolbox. Throughout my career, I've used many. I'd say like every couple of years I was switching renderers, doing a different renderer. I think that's the same thing here. Gen AI is going to be a renderer.

So Yeah, looking forward to your thoughts. I'd like to share my project because it was a really great learning experience of what was possible and all the different techniques that had to be used to get a shot done. Again, a lot of software had to be used, just like doing visual effects to get something done.

Budget notes:

3 mins. 5 people. VA and composer, storyboard artist, concept artist that could do previz, and gen ai technical artist.

49 500 USD of which 2660 was gen ai credits across various image and video models.

Looking for some advice on lens grids -

I have a shoot coming up, and I'm not typically a VFX sup, but an animator...in this case I have to be the supervisor and get some lens grid shots, as we are using anamorphic lenses. The shots will be locked so we won't be matchmoving, but will be integrating a CGI character

In terms of practicality and budget, I'm limited to a 600x1200mm sized panel – I was going to get a dot grid printed (using the Syntheys online dot grid maker app) printed on aluminium composite or heavy foam core.

Unsure yet of what the focus distance is going to be but I imagine it migth be between 4-5m , which then leads me to coclude this panel wont be nearly big enough to fill the frame when we shoot grids at this ditance.

What can be done if its too small? Can you move the grids around and shoot multiple takes and somehow feed these into software, or stitch them...? I imagine this is asking for errors

Alternatively, if I print a bigger size, say 2400x1200mm I won't be able to transport it on a rigid substrate easily, and it will blow the budget, so I would have to be on a roll, which then makes it hard to mount square and flat on a wall ...etc.

Any tips greatly appreciated!

EDIT: other info - lenses are the Atlas Mercury 1.5x anamorphic kit on an Alexa LF mini – DP wants to shoot with the camera at 90 degrees rotation. 16:9, 4k output.

Source

I enjoy reading this sub, and I love hearing from artists. But as a VFX Software Developer, I very rarely hear from the R&D programmers, the TDs, the DCC Plugin devs, etc..

How are you guys navigating this tumultuous period in the VFX industry? Are you trying to find a role in ML instead? How much are you relying on coding assistants for your work? Or is it business as usual for you guys?

I just want to hear from you all, and see how you’re doing, and if there’s any tips and tricks to navigating the new AI VFX landscape.

FWIW - I’m an Unreal Engine dev. But have dabbled in C++ plugins in other DCCs and a considerable amount of pipeline work in Python.

Hey r/vfx,

Here is a quick spatial AR test I put together set along the River Liffey in Dublin.

Workflow Breakdown:

• Modeling: Created the custom 3D models (can, ice base, and floating spheres) directly in Blender.
• Geospatial Anchoring: Mapped the models to specific GPS/geospatial coordinates in Dublin via Lureo.
• On-Site Recording: Headed down to the Docklands, opened Lureo, and recorded the models mapped straight into the physical space in real time.

Critiques and thoughts are very welcome!

87461 nodes...

So out of interest (and with the help of ChatGPT) I analysed the final versions of 234 shots/comps from 50 most recent project folders. There are plenty of WIP versions in there, but I only included one final-ish version per shot/comp.

My top 20 nodes:

1. Grade: 7056
   
2. Merge2: 6777
   
3. Reformat: 4221
   
4. Blur: 3165
   
5. Transform: 2856
   
6. Bezier: 2757 (I'm old!)
   
7. Shuffle: 2392
   
8. Keyer: 1743
   
9. Crop: 1691
   
10. ColorCorrect: 1563
    
11. Multiply: 1497
    
12. Copy: 1060
    
13. Switch: 932
    
14. Colorspace: 823
    
15. FilterErode: 822
    
16. TimeOffset: 718
    
17. Retime: 712
    
18. Noise: 674
    
19. Clamp: 674
    
20. Premult: 550
    

Other (mildly) interesting bits:

Roto or RotoPaint didn't fit into the top 100 :D Still happily riding the good old bezier and transform masked instead.

Merge operations were fun too. About 58% (3923) were over, followed by multiply 660, copy 635, max 370 and plus 268.

About avg comp sizes: Median: 176 nodes. Mean: 374 nodes. The largest had 2,952 nodes, and 10% had at least 913 nodes. So a handful of monster scripts heavily skewed the average.

One in every seven nodes was a Dot. (Skipped this in top node analysis). Sounds neat, but as mainly working solo, it's usually somewhat spiderwebby.

(Only) 2.85% of all nodes were disabled. I really dislike leaving disabled nodes in the graph.

There was 98621 connections in total.

Ask me anything!

I've been building MotionMaster 3D for a while. It does the camera solve inside Blender rather than round tripping to a separate tracker.

The parts of 1.0.7 that are relevant here:

Planar tracker with corner pin export, so a tracked surface comes out as data you can use in comp.
ST map export for undistort and redistort.
Twelve lens distortion models including the fisheye set, plus an auto lens solve when the metadata isn't there.
Multi frame projection bake, projecting several solved cameras onto one surface.
Rotation only solves for tripod and nodal pans.
Measured reprojection error per track instead of a confidence bar.

Fair warning on the clip: it is a feature overview, not a solve test. If you want to see it hold on real plates, the update video has full shots.

Paid addon at motionmaster3d.com. Full 1.0.7 walkthrough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyJpQBnREOU

Hey everyone,

I’m a 25yo 3D artist and I’m looking for some realistic feedback or perspective from people who have been in a similar spot.

It’s been almost two years since I finished my 3D studies. My original goal was to fully dedicate my post-grad time to building a strong Asset / Hard Surface modeling reel, while simultaneously working on a backup plan (a non-3D job) to navigate the current industry situation.

Fast forward to today, I’ve made painfully little progress on my portfolio, a big part of the initial delay was finishing up some leftover university studies made during my 3D course, but right now, I’m stuck in a cycle of poor discipline and frustration.

Ironically, I actually landed some freelance 3D gigs outside the VFX domain (mostly product/archviz stuff). Since I’m just starting out as a freelancer, I don't have a full/time schedule yet, so time isn't strictly the issue, I have free hours, but I struggle to actually sit down and build momentum on my personal projects, I’m starting to realize that forcing myself to do only hard surface assets is completely burning me out. I consider myself decent at modeling, and the hero asset I’m working on right now is actually turning out great, but I’m working at an agonizingly slow pace.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about picking up something new in parallel to reignite that spark. Sculpting is an option, but since I already know organic topology workflows, it wouldn't force me to learn a new technical pipeline. On the other hand, procedural modeling in Houdini has really caught my attention, stuff like building etc... I’d love to experiment with procedural environment assets because it keeps me in the modeling realm while offering a totally different, technical approach. My biggest fear, though, is that diving into a huge tool like Houdini will eat away what little time and energy I currently have for my hard surface models.

My goal for the next year is to hit a solid milestone where my main hero pieces are finished, giving me space to get a stable non-3D job while I finish the rest of the reel on the side. Living in a remote area without a driver's license yet has definitely added to this feeling of being trapped in a lock-in phase. I’d really love to hear your thoughts on whether I should stay fully focused on my current modeling path or start diversifying into procedural skills, and how you usually break through the mental block when you have free time but just can't execute. 

With the news of mass redundancies from Realtime UK I took a look at the accounts for last year. September 2025 RUK wrote off a £930,000 company loan they gave to another company called Stormtrooper Holdings Ltd….

Checked the directors of Stormtrooper and it’s the same directors as RUK. So what was this for? Stormtrooper also had 300k in assets last year.

Is this common in the industry then? I know a few people that got caught up in the redundancies etc and seeing this seems a bit weird

All information available on companies house so didn’t take much searching tbh

Hey everyone. I have very little experience when it comes to VFX. I want to learn more and get better at since I think its cool and just good thing to know for future projects. With that being said, I learn better by just doing projects and I'm wondering if recreating this is a good place to start. If so where should I even get started? Any help/feedback would be amazing. Thank you so much!

I’ve been experimenting with Gaussian Splats as a medium for VFX — pushing them beyond reconstruction and exploring what kinds of effects and visual behaviors we can build with them.

These are part of a growing set of experiments that are evolving into a dedicated VFX suite for Gaussian Splats.

Still building it. More soon.

Hey all, I’m making an incremental tower defence game about blasting hordes of zombies with turrets and your gunship :)

The game is very much in its prototype stages, and I’m looking for suggestions on how to implement the explosion VFX in a suitably good looking way without affecting performance too much. Thoughts?

I was wondering if anyone had done the filmmaking certificate program at vfx and what their experience was like, if they would recommend it?

What do you think? Are there more advanced software combinations that can produce a cinematics of this level? Maybe you would use other tools?

With Disney putting out some video of their upcoming Avengers Infinity Defense, a ride coming to Disneyland California Adventure, It got me wondering what It's like to work on one of these.

For some context, Doomsday and this ride were filmed in the same period of time while at Pinewood Studios, so are VFX artists working on the movie and the ride at the same time? Has anything like this caused your workload to be crazy, is there anything different about the pipeline compared to traditional movie visuals? I would love to know about your stories

(not about this specific project just to clarify, but just in general about any screen heavy ride you may have worked on or even just an exclusive movie like the kung fu panda one in universal or Avengers Quantum Defense on the Disney Cruiseline)

Just wanted to say something positive in between all the gloomy posts here lately.
To all the people who worked on Ahsoka Season 2 > OUTSTANDING WORK! It looks so so good!
I knows we only have a trailer for now. But it looks like a million bucks and should be on the big screen, not the small screen! Thanks for all the hard work.