FMX 2026 program goes live
The FMX program is live for the 30th edition, with RENO pipeline lessons, generative video craft, and European collab on Predator: Badlands.
Browsing Tag
Industrial Light & Magic
75 posts
Crawly for Videoscreens: SpyderPro
SpyderPro gets serious: anorganic filters, 12,000 nits, 3D LUT export, OLED support, and proper profiling tools make it fit for postproduction again. Let's see if the claims hold up!
World VFX Day 2025: Global Line-Up Revealed
WētāFX, ILM, Framestore, Adobe and more join World VFX Day 2025 this December, streaming live from London.
“A Model of Madness” Scott Ross Why VFX Fails as a Business
Scott Ross: VFX is “a model of madness.” ILM, Digital Domain, and decades later, the business still cannot stand on three legs.
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.
War of the Worlds | Retro Articles
Review: In DP 05 : 2005, ILM chased special effects through a brand new pipeline for Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds film. A test run with time pressure - in the middle of a big-budget production.
The Book of Boba Fett | VFX Breakdown
Three desert wretches with canine followers: VFX powerhouse Hybride Technologies pulls perhaps the most popular bounty hunter in stellar history through desert sand.
Behind-the-scenes video for The Book of Boba Fett released!
Spaghetti westerns in space: ILM uses traditional animation techniques to create bounty hunters Cad Bane and Wookie Black Krrsantan for the Star Wars streaming series. Nevertheless, the LED Volume Stage also features high-tech.
Marvel at Boba Fett’s digital stuntman!
Riding the Rancor: Texture Artist from ILM releases the Digital Double - from the streaming series "The Book of Boba Fett". But that's not all from a galaxy far, far away..
Back in Dinoland
Review: In DP 01 : 2016, "Jurassic World" celebrated its opening. We asked VFX supervisor Martyn Culpitt from Image Engine for a chat - about impressive CG environments and even more impressive CG dinosaurs. Who is the biggest pipeline eater?
Hawkeye | VFX Breakdown
The superheroes with a licence to shoot a bow: These VFXs shoot faster than Jeremy Renner can draw a compound bow.
Zatopek | VFX Breakdown
Can the Czech locomotive Emil Zatopek win Olympic gold? The VFX studio PFX puts a stadium in the viewport of the legendary runner!
Bigger & Better
Review: In DP 04 : 2009, effects company ILM realised gigantic robots for Michael Bay's second part of the tin-and-bending brothers from Transformers. "Mindbending" or "sand in the gears"?
Thousands of parts
Looking back: In DP 05 : 2007, the ILM team was looking for new ways to bring the Transformers to the big screen - and came up with a solution that had a decisive impact on the industry.
Ridley Road | VFX-Breakdown
Cowardly fascists versus freedom fighters: this BBC series portrays the banality of evil.
Magical effects
Review: In DP 05:07, Harry Potter 5, to which eleven studios contributed effects, was enchanting. These included heavyweights such as DNEG, ILM, Framestore and MPC.
Houdini | Tutorial
Pride of the (Hungarian) nation: Artist from Industrial Light and Magic pulls up neo-Gothic architecture!
Allan McKay on VFX and Games
The 21 Artist Show speaks with Emmy-winning VFX supervisor Allan McKay about effects, games, career development and lifelong learning.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker — VFX Supervisor Roger Guyett Interview
ILM VFX supervisor Roger Guyett discusses the global production, practical and digital techniques, virtual production and fleet work behind The Rise of Skywalker.
MaterialX Joins the Academy Software Foundation
MaterialX became the Academy Software Foundation’s seventh hosted project, strengthening an open standard for exchanging look-development data.
Epic Games Releases Virtual Production Field Guide Volume 2
Epic Games’ second free Virtual Production Field Guide offered nearly 100 pages of interviews, remote collaboration guidance and Unreal Engine 5 coverage.
Inside Digital Production 02:2021
Digital Production 02:2021 covers colour tools, Resolve, Magic Bullet, Marmoset, Houdini, Katana, Nuendo, Cascadeur and Unreal Niagara.
The Rise of Skywalker | VFX-Breakdown
What language does Babu Frik actually speak? Can he speak binary, like BB-8 and D-0?
Emmys 2020 | VFX Winner
The Mandalorian won over the viewers - but did it win over the jury?
VES Honours Ray Scalice and Lifetime Members
The VES named Ray Scalice its 2020 Founders Award recipient and honoured Debbie Denise, Thomas Haegele, Richard Hollander and Eugeen Rizzardi.
Hal Hickel Previews Virtual Production
ILM animation director Hal Hickel discussed The Mandalorian's virtual-production methods in a free preVIEW session for VIEW Conference 2020.
ILM Details The Mandalorian StageCraft
ILM used StageCraft, Unreal Engine and a 270-degree LED wall to shoot more than half of The Mandalorian's first season.
ILM Behind the Magic: The Rise of Skywalker
New Behind The Magic from Industrial Light & Magic: VFX breakdowns for “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker”
Material X | Open Source with Autodesk
What is the state of Material X? A published discussion panel and summary of the current state of the exchange format for material and lookdev content:
Bumblebee | Visual Effects Breakdown
RodeoFX and Industrial Light & Magic present their work on Bumblebee (2018) in these new breakdowns!
That was FMX 2019!
FMX 2019 is over and most visitors have successfully returned home: A short recap of this year's trade conference!
VFX | Bird Box – Industrial Light & Magic
New Behind the Magic from ILM: this time it is Bird Box's turn - the Netflix film in a breakdown!
ILM – Solo: A Star Wars Story VFX
Industrial Light and Magic feeds us Star Wars: The Behind the Magic clips show L3-37, chases and more.
ILM Breakdowns for Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Finally, new VFX breakdowns from Industrial Light & Magic: these Behind the Magic clips show breakdowns for Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
Rogue One: Behind the Magic by ILM
New breakdown clip from ILM: In this Behind the Magic clip, the team shows its work on “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” (2016)
Industrial Light & Magic: Kong Skull Island
New Behind the Magic clip from ILM: The team shows the creation process of King Kong for the film “Kong Skull Island” (2017)
Chaosgroup V-Ray 2017 Showreel
New video from ChaosGroup: The 2017 showreel for the V-Ray renderer with work by BLUR Studio, Mackevision, ILM, MPC and other VFX studios.
SIGGRAPH 2017: RenderMan 22
What can be expected from RenderMan 22? Alongside Pixar's announcements about the upcoming version, the new showreel was also released!
MaterialX: Open Standard from ILM
New open standard for exchanging materials between applications: ILM and Lucasfilm release the first version of MaterialX.
John Knoll in an FMX Interview
Anyone who could not experience John Knoll's talk about "Rogue One" live at the FMX Conference 2017 no longer needs to be sad. AWN conducted a longer interview with the VFX supervisor at FMX; here is the video.
Behind the Magic: ILM Shows Its Work
Industrial Light and Magic releases breakdown clips for Its work on "Deepwater Horizon", Rogue One" and "Doctor Strange"
2017 Oscar Nominations
The Oscar nominations for this year have now been announced. Naturally, we are primarily interested in the VFX and animation categories. Here is the overview.
CG Characters for “Rogue One”
Spoiler alert: one of the most impressive CG achievements for “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” was the digital re-creation of two human actors. In this video, ILM shows how this demanding task was accomplished.
Behind the Magic: ILM and Warcraft
Hair, performance capture, and orc crowds. Industrial Light and Magic shows three new featurettes about its work on Warcraft.
Conference programme & last call for early bird tickets
So ... our animago birthday party is slowly coming together! Here is an excerpt of the presentations at the animago CONFERENCE: Speakers from Disney, Pixar, ILM, Digital Domain, Platige Image and many other well-known animation and VFX studios will be there.
Leo vs. Grizzly
Leonardo DiCaprio finally received his first Oscar yesterday. ILM created the impressive CG bear attack for “The Revenant”.
Sci-Tech Oscars 2016
Ahead of the Oscars, the Academy again presented its Technical Achievement Awards, honouring inflatable greenscreens and the Image Shaker.
VES Award Winners 2016
The major winners include “Star Wars”, “The Revenant” and “Game of Thrones”. We are especially pleased for the student-category winner.
“Jurassic World” Breakdown Reel
Image Engine was one of the studios that supported ILM with the effects for "Jurassic World." Here is the impressive breakdown reel of the scenes worked on by Image Engine.
Honest Trailer “Jurassic World”
"Jurassic World" is released on DVD and Blu-Ray today. We have a making-of about the film in the upcoming DP issue, and for now here is the Honest Trailer.
Behind the Magic – “Transformers 4”
ILM has published a making-of clip for the fourth "Transformers" instalment, which certainly will not have been the last.
When the Lucy gets the LIDAR…
Review: In DP 07 : 2014, "Lucy", together with director Luc Besson, tapped into the full brain power - and the VFX power of ILM, Rodeo FX and 4DMax. How did the sci-fi action film with Scarlett Johansson come about?
Former DreamWorks Artist Sues Major Studios
Bold: an artist formerly employed by DreamWorks Animation files a "Class Action" lawsuit against Pixar, Disney, SPI, Digital Domain 3.0 and Lucasfilm, among others.
Blockbusters at the animago CONFERENCE
VFX creators from "X-Men", "Godzilla", "Monsters University" and "Iron Man 3" in Babelsberg.
Sci-Tech Oscar 2015 Consideration List
The Scientific and Technical Awards Committee has presented the technology developments being considered for an award in the coming year.
Academy Awards for Technical Achievements
Nineteen scientific and technical developments will be honored with an award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on February 15.
Building the Future
A taste of DP issue 06:13: For it, we spoke with set designer William Cheng about "Pacific Rim". First, here is his impressive "Total Recall" work.
Of “Jaegers” and monsters
Review: In DP 06 : 2013, the VFX cracker Pacific Rim grilled the cinema summer. Compositing artist Michael Ralla tells us how Industrial Light & Magic tamed the Kaiju giants.
Alembic Reaches Release 1.5
ILM and Sony Picture Imageworks have released Alembic 1.5. New features are intended to improve application-independent scene exchange.
Small Siggraph Sneak Peek
ILM offers a first look at its Instant Facial Performance Capture System. The Kinect-based system eliminates calibration of actors' facial expressions.
Staff Cuts at ILM
The closure of LucasArts has knock-on consequences. Employees at Industrial Light & Magic now also have to pack their bags.
Katana 1.0 from The Foundry
Katana 1.0, which has just been released by The Foundry, is organizational software intended to be tailored specifically to the worklflow of large studios.
ILM and DreamWorks at FMX
FMX 2011 is pleased to present visitors with exciting contributions from ILM and DreamWorks Animation, among others, this year.
SIGGRAPH 2010: ILM and Sony Develop Open Animation Format
Industrial Light & Magic and Sony have introduced Alembic, an open-source format for storing animation data of any size across software packages.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen—An Exclusive Behind-the-Scenes Look in the Current DP
A dream comes true: ILM designs the cover image for DIGITAL PRODUCTION.
Industrial Light & Magic Acquires Nuke Licence
Visual-effects software developer The Foundry announced that Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Lucasfilm’s multiple Academy Award-winning visual-effects studio, has completed its production pipeline with Nuke.
Visual Effects in “The Spiderwick Chronicles “
To create the many unusual and complex creatures in “The Spiderwick Chronicles”, the producers hired two of the best top experts in the field of special effects: Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and Tippett Studio.
Autodesk Tools Power Oscar-Nominated Work
Visual-effects Oscar winner The Golden Compass was created using Autodesk technology.
Lucasfilm Adopts Qt for Production Tools
Lucasfilm adopts Trolltech Qt for cross-platform tools at ILM, LucasArts, Skywalker Sound and Lucasfilm Animation.
An Evening with ILM
At the invitation of Autodesk, Joel Aron presented ILM's work on "Pirates of the Caribbean" and other productions in Munich
Autodesk Presents the Maker of “Pirates of the Caribbean”
Joel Aron, Digital Production Supervisor at ILM, presents current projects in Munich on April 2 and gives a preview of new productions
Visual Effects Society Announces the 5th VES Awards
“Pirates of the Caribbean 2” in first place among the nominations / VFX pioneer Dennis Muren receives honour for his life's work
ILM Spin-off: Kerner Optical
While ILM concentrates on digital effects, ILM’s specialists for classic film effects found their own company
Alias Roadshow: Germany Launch in Mid-September in Berlin
On 16.9. Presentation of Maya 7 and Motionbuilder 7 / TD Raul Essig from Industrial Light & Magic as Guest Speaker
Siggraph: Keynote with George Lucas
"Star Wars" creator gave an insight into his work and plans as an interview guest at this year's keynote