Game Boy Robot: When Nostalgia Gets a Quad-Based Makeover
Game Boy nostalgia meets quad-based hard-surface modeling in Benavidmark’s detailed 3D robot tribute—every production step dissected.
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Longform for subscribers: deep dives into VFX and post workflows, tool and pipeline analysis, real-world constraints, integration notes, licensing and performance realities, and what actually holds up in production. Less hype, more usable detail you can bookmark and share internally.
Using Unreal Engine in animation pipelines: How to use version control
Anchorpoint brings Git + locking + in‑editor commits to Unreal. See why Maya pipelines feel prehistoric now.
„For Those Who Dare“
These days you wouldn’t always have to go for an expensive, professionally calibrated screen if you are not working for extremely demanding clients. Has the age of correct colors finally arrived? What about HDR? Let’s have a broader look!
Crossbow: Workflow Automation for VFX & Animation
Four years of R&D, zero spreadsheets, no more copy-pasting shot status—Crossbow promises a less painful way to manage VFX and animation projects. In this interview, Jindrich Cervenka explains what Crossbow shoots, why it matters, and why you still need a mid-range GPU.
The visual effects of Star Trek – a retrospective
On September 8th, 1966, the U.S.S. Enterprise flew across American screens for the first time - since then, "Star Trek" in all its various iterations has become part of the zeitgeist. And, in keeping with the Enterprise's mission, it has also repeatedly stepped into new areas of visual effects, making it one of the many trailblazers for our industry. In this retrospective, we want to take a closer look at some of these milestones.
Lola Post’s VFX Survival Guide on Walking with Dinosaurs
Lola Post’s Rob Harvey shares VFX details on Walking with Dinosaurs 2025: 800 shots, 200 artists, Unreal Engine for dinosaurs, and zero Jurassic Park liberties.
Skeleton Crew: How Halon Gave Ms. Blue Her Digital Bones
Halon preserved an 87-foot blue whale skeleton for AR using LiDAR, photogrammetry, and good timing—thanks to a foggy morning jog.
Thunderbolts* Vaults: Digital Domain on Marvel’s Most Grounded Brawl
Digital Domain VFX Producer Ryan Wilk breaks down Marvel’s Thunderbolts* vault chaos, Ghost phasing, and why less is more for photoreal CG.
Crossbow Confidential: PFX’s Digital Dashboard Keeps ‘Locked’ Rolling
PFX marshals 60 artists, a lidar-scanned SUV and its Crossbow app to steer 750 shots for Locked through four months of frantic VFX.
Strange New Virtual Production Worlds!
It's a good time for us Trekkies - between Discovery and Lower Decks, between Picard and Strange New Worlds, there's something for everyone - finally again! But there's a lot going on behind the scenes - because the first big show to be filmed on a Virtual Production Stage was Star Trek: Discovery. And right after that - almost simultaneously - came Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. As it was definitely worth seeing, we asked what you can expect from your big VP production.
The Hungarian Dressmaker – by PFX
Not every historic drama is created equal - "The Hungarian Dressmaker" rebuild a world barely out of reach of living memory, and we got a chance to talk to PFX artists and artisans about rebuiling 1940' s Bratislava and Biskupice
WeFX Saddles Up for “1923”
From pristine scans to viscous blood foam: how 50 artists spent six months on 20 shots that make one horse’s final tumble painfully believable.
Final Cut Pro:Mac mini or iPad M4?
Let's evaluate the M4 iPad Pro and Mac mini Pro for video editing, especially with DaVinci Resolve and Final Cut Pro X. While the iPad shares advantages with integrated hardware for certain formats, the Mac mini excels in handling high-end camera sources in raw formats. Or does it?
LiDAR scanning for Everybody!
Scanner veteran Lawren Bancroft-Wilson gives us a look behind the curtain on Lidar Scanning for VFX and Post.
The (further) development of Fusion.
Fusion, the compositing tool in and out of Resolve, has got a big update - and we asked BMD's Simon Hall, what it all means and what the future holds..
Digital Domain vs. the Nether Horde: Behind the VFX of Minecraft
When Warner Bros. enlisted Digital Domain to tackle the final battle in Minecraft: The Movie, they weren’t just signing up for blocks and shaders...
Rise FX saves christmas?
When Red One dropped last this year, audiences got get a holiday cocktail of Jumanji-style action (The director…
Getting Colors Right with the Datacolor LightColor Meter
Let's test! The Datacolor LightColor Meter Model LCM200 is designed for accurate light source measurement, addressing challenges in color matching across different light sources.
The Survivor: A Study in Character-Driven Look Development
At FMX, we met a few students from "PIXLVISN " - and since we never looked at what they are doing, it is high time to do so!
Fusion 20: a deep look at the core
With its latest release, Blackmagic Fusion is positioning itself more aggressively than ever as a powerful and cost-effective complete package for node-based compositing and motion graphics. We check whether Fusion 20 lives up to the high expectations.
Mac mini or iPad Pro M4 for Post?
The iPad Pro, with its M4 processor, shows potential for video editing, particularly with applications like DaVinci Resolve. However, limitations arise, notably in memory capacity (16 GB max), affecting stability with high-resolution projects.
Marine-Snow-Simulation in Houdini
Join our workshop and discover how to simulate marine snow and oceanic particles for VFX - Master underwater simulations, ocean effects, and particle-based systems. Perfect for VFX artists and anybody who tripped over the phrase "Ocean dandruff".
AI-Workspace: Flora Fauna
There are many different tools for visualisation with AI. "Flora Fauna AI" takes an interesting alternative approach here. The system aims to combine many technologies under one bonnet and be an AI workspace.
ACES 2.0 – available in Mistika!
Wait, there is already a new Version of ACES? We barely got used to the last one! And it is already working in SGO Mistika? Let's dive in!
Red Poppies, Bears and Open Source!
Polish war drama Red Poppies (Czerwone Maki) brings the Battle of Monte Cassino to the big screen with over 400 VFX shots, 120 of which were crafted by Polish VFX studio Imaginary Pixels. And the team relied on open-source tools?
Trailmakers from Denmark!
Game trailers should make you interested in the game, obviously, and since we can't wait for Trialmakers 2, the trailer did its job - so, we are talking to the creatives behind the trailer!
Calibration for less – Part 3
Part 3 of the "Calibration for Less" series - we get into the settings with DisplayCal, Connect Software, Hardware and Wetware, and are chasing the elusive perfect colours!
Using 3D Objects in After Effects
Since 2024, it has been possible to integrate 3D objects into After Effects Beta. The updated version of the Adobe compositing solution now also has this functionality.
Colour Monitoring for Cheapskates! Part 2
Now that your I/O-Hardware should be up and running, let’s get into equipment for profiling the screen (aka…
Color Monitoring for Cheapskates?Part 1
Colour Monitoring is cheap, easy, and fast. As usual, you can pick two of those adjectives — and in this series, we are going for cheap and will make it easy for you!
Architectural visualisation in a war zone
Let's do a 3D reconstruction of the Museum of Western and Eastern Art with Rhino and Blender in Odessa (Ukraine)!
Speed in a small package: LaCie Rugged SSD Pro 5 Review
Thunderbolt 5 offers the ONE thing all VFX professionals crave - more speed. LaCie now rolls out the very first SSD to really take advantage of the new standard and it seems like they had us in mind when designing this little drive.
Out on its own: Twixtor Standalone
Twixtor standalone offers an easy-to-use solution for slow-motion video generation using AI, but it is slower than competitors. Topaz Video AI excels in speed and quality, making it the recommended choice, even if it doesn't come cheap. Which one is right for you?
Mufasa heads to MPC
The Prequel of a remake of a animated movie, based on a Shakespeare play... and still worth watching! We got a Chance to talk to Audrey Ferrara, MPCs VFX Supervisor for Mufasa
FilmLight sends your frames!
FilmLight’s Nara simplifies media workflows and improves collaboration. And you don't even need to have Baselight in your pipeline! The latest version enables seamless progress reviews, approvals, and compliance processes—all without proxies. Interested?
CineMon 1.0: Correcting the Signal
Let's talk about using low-cost HDMI video capture devices for accurate signal representation, particularly with log formats like S-log3. And also the development and application of a correction LUT using Resolve to enhance the accuracy of color and luminance.
The Rise and Fall of Cyborg
When we think of compositing systems of the late nineties and early two thousands, Discreet and Quantel come to mind. But for a brief time, there was a real contender to those two powerhouses: 5D Cyborg!
Hardware for CineMon (et. al.)
After looking at the software side of CineMon, it's time to take a look at the hardware - whats good and what's not?
ASUS ProArt Display 5K PA27JCV
Let's not faff about: 5K Screens? Really? I tested one, and here are the results - the Use Case is not what you might think it is.
IBC 2024 Adobe Premiere Pro News with Francis Crossman
Francis Crossman shows the new color management, the properties panel and the new look of the Adobe Premiere GUI.
Digital Domain Lets Agatha Fly
The prettiest Marvel show this year was "Agatha All Along" Time to ask Digital Domain how they did that!
CineMon 1.0 (Beta) for iPad and Mac
The times of expensive hardware-based scopes are gone. Modern software scopes are versatile, flexible, and can be adapted to new technologies. Until now, Nobe OmniScope by Time in Pixels was the leading solution, both under Windows and MacOS. But there’s a new kid on the block for MacOS and iOS now, called CineMon (with a charming agnomination to a popular spice).
IBC 2024 Frame.io with JJ Powell
The new version 4 of Fram.io has many workflow improvements. And JJ Powell explains how the Frame.io team uses Frame.io in their own workflow.
IBC 2024 Adobe AI News with Anton Knoblach
A second IBC-Interview: Anton Knoblach talks about the new AI features coming to Firefly. This german interview is translated with the new subtitle translation in Adobe Premiere.
iClone 8.52: A Major Leap for Animation Editing
iClone 8.52 delivers a highly anticipated update for professional animation editing, packed with groundbreaking features driven by user feedback. Despite its numerical step from 8.51, this release introduces transformative tools to elevate animation workflows.
Hff’s Little Star
Every year, the VFX programme at HFF Munich produces various projects that break new creative ground. These include the animated mixed-media short film "Little Star", which brings a touching encounter to life through a combination of traditional hand-drawn 2D animation and 3D computer animation. But how exactly was the film made?
Through the Woodlands
Creatures made of tree branches and roots seem to have a firm place in the history ofVFX. Just…
VR gallery at the Ostfalia
Wouldn't it be great if you could see something else in VR besides hectic hustle and bustle, demos and microtransaction calls? An art exhibition, for example? Yes, there is - and we found one such project with Noah Thiele, a student at Ostfalia.
University up north!
By the way, you can also study at a university in Flensburg if you want to distance yourself as far as possible from the "Wild South". But what can you expect there?
Xencelabs Quick Keys Remote
Functionality and compactness for artists on the graphics tablet - useful, but with pitfalls when creating macros.
How to Persuade Competing VFX Studios to Cooperate
How can you get a number of companies that are in extreme competition with each other and, therefore, do not trust each other to work together? You introduce an independent third organization in which all competitors are jointly involved.
What you need to Know: Premiere Integrates AI Video Generation
Adobe rolls out new AI-driven video tools for Premiere Pro, including Firefly-powered features. Enhanced workflows, time-saving tools, and stable performance are the key highlights, and not making editors superfluos.
Once upon a time, there was a Henry
Everything used to be better - that's nonsense, of course. But nostalgia also has its very own charm. And so we want to take a look back at the supposedly good old days in a magazine that usually keeps its eyes curiously open to the future. Completely subjective, beautifully coloured and deliberately seen through rose-tinted glasses.
Keychron Q8
After direct enquiry: Our "Ergonomics and the perfect workplace" recommendation has a hole: What about all those who suffer from joint pain when typing? Carpal tunnel, tension, and so on?
Paths in Substance Painter and Substance Designer in use
Splines and paths have been added to Substance Painter and Substance Painter for a year now. Here I show various application examples of what can be achieved with them.
Ghosts at the HFF
A humanoid robot leans against a car, smoking, with a dog sitting opposite. They enjoy the sunset together.
Fallout!
Most of us have played an episode or two of Fallout - and were cautiously pleased when Amazon Prime announced a film adaptation. Turns out the first season was a lot of fun - and had some great shots. Some of the best came from Rise FX - so we connected our Pip-Boy to the bunker in Berlin and asked the artists!
DaVinci Resolve Version 19 – Speech recognition
The public beta version has been available for some time and once again offers numerous new functions. Blackmagic Design (BM for short) is still releasing improved versions every few weeks, but many of the new features are already relatively stable and allow initial tests.
Kay’s script helper with AI!
AI is the big hype in every industry - at least if you believe breathless marketers who write newsletters to each other that nobody reads. But what if a VFX supervisor took on the topic? What does it do approximately? And now let's find out ....
What’s new in Flame
Autodesk is releasing the next version of Flame just in time for NAB. And once again, the update is a colourful bag of innovations. From minor optimisations to major new features, from product maintenance to fundamental changes, everything is included.
BMD Micro Color Panel
In addition to some new cameras, the Australians have also released a revised version of their smallest grading panel. Unlike the new camera models, it was already available for us to test.
Animating images with Resolve
"Breathing life" into static images with effects from DaVinci Resolve - so-called Cinemagrams - are easy to do - and in our new series "Resolve Tricks for Beginners" we'll start with them!
Virtual production on celluloid?
"What You Don't See" is a pioneering project that is one of the first to combine the oldest and one of the newest technologies in the film industry - 35mm film and LED volumes - in a scenic production.
Intelligent Media Assistant?
Isn't it time to say goodbye to old workflows? And put the hype surrounding AI to good use? Instead of breathless marketeer newsletters that nobody reads anyway, there are also useful applications - for example Cara One.
Virtual production with just one Samsung LED screen?
Let's be honest: large virtual production stages are cool, but they're also damn unwieldy - do you really need that many screens?
Obsbot: 4K, CI, Gimbal, ..
In 2022, Obsbot surprised us with its 4K AI model (see issue DP 22:06). Now they're back with Obsbot Tiny 2. Is the upgrade really 2024 fair or just a warm rehash like the next FIFA [year]? Let's find out!
WIND UP – Family drama on a desert island
As part of their second year of study, students from the VFX specialisation joined forces with all other departments at the Munich University of Television and Film to create a short film. This ambitious project combines various disciplines of the HFF and tells a dramatic story using visual effects.
Magic Nodes 2: New functions
The "Magic Nodes" extension for "Adobe After Effects" has
has been around for a while. This enables compositing in a Nodes network
with the Adobe programme. A look at the changes
and improvements in version 2.
Baby’s first pipeline
The first big project with multiple stakeholders can feel like a rollercoaster ride! A clear workflow is the secret recipe for smooth collaboration and communication between departments. You often hear the term "pipeline" - sounds technical, doesn't it? Don't panic! In this article, I'll show you how to set up a pipeline for your project - without any magic or programming!
From the left..
Nomen est omen. When reading the company name "Left Angle", anyone with any mathematical knowledge will think: "There's no such thing!" And it's a bit like that with your product, Autograph: a new compositing and motion design application that stands up to comparison with Nuke and After Effects. That doesn't even exist. Or is there?
IBC 2023: Adobe Premiere Pro with Francis Crossman
Francis Crossman shows how to remove pauses and filler words in text based editing and the removing of background noise.
A beastly good choice
The in-depth investigation of a FullCGI production with Houdini KineFX, Grooming and V-ray in Solaris.
VR beyond the hype
Although the hype surrounding the Apple Vision Pro is still going strong, VR has yet to really gain a foothold at home. However, where it is really picking up speed is in the area of "rides" and free roaming. Amusement parks are where the technology can be fully utilised, regardless of home PC compatibility. We ask ourselves, what does it all look like then?
Fritzi & Sophie
The cinema film of the story was produced in classic 2D. For the series, we opted for the "third dimension". This presented us with new challenges, but also opened up completely new doors. Blender was our main tool.
VFX-Shoot in the trunk
How do you shoot a film in the smallest setting imaginable, a closed car boot? Can you manage to maintain the narrative tension for 90 minutes and at the same time reinvent yourself visually time and again?
Shock Dog from Stuttgart
Now, we're known to be more cat fans than dog fans - but when we saw "The Nevers", that went from "more" to "definitely" not dog fans - because (without giving anything away from the story), the "Shock Dog", Dr Hague's pet, made us turn on the light in the room in the evening while watching it.
Film with a Phone?
It's almost 10 years since Austin Reza shot a film for Bentley's luxury cars: on an iPhone 5S. At the time, it was still in stylish black and white and with high contrasts - no doubt also to prevent artefacts from becoming too obvious. Back in 2011, Park Chan-wook and Park
Chan-kyong from South Korea even shot the fantasy horror "Night Fishing" on an iPhone 4 in colour and won a Golden Bear for the best short film. Apple itself, on the other hand, has generally shot its advertising films on cameras such as the Arri Alexa.
Comfy UI – AI for artists!
While some become the Stable Diffusion play child, and others lament the demise of the industry, we're staying out of this round of prophecy and looking at what you can really do with it as artists - and not as slightly brainwashed newsletter marketers.
SynthEyes at BorisFX
3D camera tracking, also known as "match moving" in the professional scene, is now offered by every better software for video editing or 3D. But when we compared a few such popular 3D trackers in DP 18:01, SynthEyes was already our high-end reference for good reason.
Nuke Utilities Volume 8 – Textures
You can have great footage under the pen - sometimes you just need a few extra details to give your comp the finishing touch. And so that we don't all keep using Nuke's own noise generator, this issue contains a small, fine collection of texture generators for Nuke.
Procedural Worldbuilding mit Unreal
We build realtime environments with Unreal's Procedural Content Generation Framework (PCG) - or do you really want to do everything by hand?
USD, Solaris and Karma in Houdini 20 (and elsewhere…)
Solaris saw the light of day 4 years ago in Houdini 18. When I tried it out for the first time back then, it was still very bumpy and initially put me off. One crash followed another. If that happens today, then it's probably due to the graphics card driver, which is supposed to be up to date.
Blender 4.1 goes into detail
The Blender release cycle consists of three new versions of the software per year. The first release is usually characterised by new features. The reason for this is that the third and final release is a Long Term Support (LTS) version, which is supplied with bug fixes for another two years.
We’re building an AI box!
Okay, we admit it: AI is slowly becoming interesting - even for everyday production. And as we see more and more tools that are relevant for artists, and not just for "tech bros", the more our workstation is glowing. So it's time for us to find out what it takes to work normally and what adjustments we can make to reconcile budget and computing power.
The Never Ending Story: Are Apple XDR devices suitable for reference use in colour grading?
This has been burning under my fingernails for a long time: Almost every day the question stumbles in on every colour grading forum: "My video looks different after export." 99 per cent of the cases concern Apple users. Just as often as this question comes up, the explanations are incomplete, incorrect or misleading. No wonder, the topic is complex.
The knights from the cutting table rush to the rescue
As I often work on several projects at the same time with Premiere, After Effects and Photoshop, it's difficult to keep track of the time spent. In my search for a solution, I came across "Knights of the Editing Table".
Monkeys, the fourth
The time has come: the next part of the "Planet of the Apes" saga - now number four - will be released in cinemas on 8 May. And that's why we simply asked Weta how they - instead of the apes - built the environment.
Prism Pipeline, the second
The technical requirements of animation and VFX productions are increasing every year - I don't have to tell you that. In most projects, a variety of tools are used to achieve the desired quality. In order to complete these increasingly complex projects within the specified deadlines, more powerful pipeline tools are also required.
Shadow play in Blender
Even though it is one of the youngest VFX degree programmes, the HFF already has a lot to show - and if we remember what we did in the second
what we did in the second semester, "Das Schattenspiel" is already worthy of note. But how did it come about?
Beauty-Grading in Resolve
Using software to approximate images of people to current conventions of beauty is work that has shifted more and more from compositing to the domain of grading. As the possibilities increased, so did the demands. Following on from the last article, which dealt with best practices in colour grading in general, we would like to take a very specific look at tips in the area of beauty and retouching. Here, too, we take the perspective of filmmakers who, for budgetary reasons, are "forced" to grade all or at least part of their films themselves and have already gained some experience in Resolve.
Spyder Checkr Video
Wasn't everything better when video by definition was still in black and white? Since colour was added, it has only become more complicated - but what the heck, there are helpers for that!
The discovery of slowness
Artificial slow motion, i.e. the calculation of additional intermediate images, has been around for a long time. The best methods to date have been called "optical flow", although this actually refers to the visual perception of movement in general. Now A.I. or neural networks are also establishing themselves here. We compare Twixtor 8, DaVinci Resolve 18.6 and Topaz Video AI 4.
What if Virtual PCs were easy…
What is the cloud? Besides the marketeering blurb, it is just someone else's computer - and if you need something to work on quick, a virtual machine on some cloud infrastructure, it is usually quicker and in some cases cheaper then setting up a workstation. If it were only easier..
Block Power Station
Routine tasks in video
editing are often time-consuming. For Premiere Pro and After Effects
there is a plugin that aims to make
programming easier.
"Automation Blocks" allows you to optimise the workflow in both applications and get results on screen faster.
Halation and diffusion – On the hunt for the ultimate film look
What do you do when digital cameras and modern lenses are too good? It's simple: you use software to simulate the technical weaknesses of analogue film or the filters that experienced cameramen use in such cases.
That’s not a microphone. THAT is a MICROPHONE
Audio recorders are available in all variations and even the wireless microphones from Rode, DJI or Hollyland now have an internal
have an internal memory and can therefore also be used standalone. You can often see on YouTube how someone holds a small microphone in front of their nose. It always looks a bit ridiculous. The Yellowtec iXM microphone is different. The scene from Crocodile Dundee comes to mind: "That's not a microphone. THIS is a MICROPHONE!" And it's big and made of metal with large control buttons. We tested whether it sounds as professional as it looks
The icing on the cake
We're almost finished with the big "Ideal workstation" series - but due to multiple trapped fingers, dropped hardware and an "accident" worthy of a bandage, we have to add a little more: Microphone arms. So we asked around and actually only got one answer: Take Yellowtec, it's good. Aha, but what is that?
ProArt: Big and small and gaming?
Professional monitors cost a lot of money. But what exactly defines "professional" and how close can you get to a real professional monitor with a mid-range panel for prosumers? Let's go poaching in the Asus range!
Nuke Utilities Volume 7 – Transform
It's time to move a few things. So this issue
this issue, our little collection of tools is all about Transform Tools. So we're distorting,
scaled, rotated and even morphed a little.