George Maestri

I think AB2319 misses the point — and here's why. On the surface, it looks like a win for California's post and VFX workers. Keep post-production in-state. Protect jobs. Great story. But let's take the long view. This tax incentive will largely benefit multi-billion-dollar international corporations that are already profitable. Disney. Warner Bros., Sony, Paramount. These studios don't need to be saved. They don't need taxpayer subsidies. This is corporate socialism dressed up as industry support. And yes — keeping post and VFX work in California will benefit workers. For a while. But here's the reality most people aren't talking about: The workers don't own the companies doing the work. The VFX and post houses — the actual businesses absorbing this work — will see none of that benefit. They'll keep competing on low bids, razor-thin margins, and impossible deadlines. They'll keep being asked to do the impossible, often at a loss. So what happens next? → Workers still get laid off. → VFX companies keep going bankrupt. → The studios pocket the savings and will move on when there are more attractive subsidies elsewhere. AB2319 is a band-aid. It sounds great in a press release. But until we address the structural economics crushing the independent post and VFX industry, no tax incentive is going to fix what's actually broken. Look past the shiny new bill. The real problem is still there. #VFX #FilmIndustry #PostProduction #AB2319 #California #FilmPolicy

82

46 Comments

I'll take two actors and some celluloid over A.I. any day. I'm not afraid of machine learning technologies, they're extremely helpful in CG and animation specifically. However, in my limited experience in animation/mocap workflows, having a groundwork understanding of cinematic language is essential. And you don't build that foundation by engaging with AI first. #MakeArtGreatAgain -- keep your sandbox as small as possible!

11

3 Comments

Saying something has "No CGI" or "No VFX" in a film/show is not cool, especially when there's obvious CGI/VFX in them and there are even credits countering these statements. You're essentially insulting and slapping an entire hard-working department in the face and seemingly trying to discredit and erase them. We are here, we always have been, so please for the love of filmmaking, stop this trend. We can all appreciate practical approaches, but VFX exists in ways that many people forget so please remember that we're all collaborating artists and we all deserve respect for one another's craft without trying to erase each other's contributions. #vfx #filmmaking #television #visualeffects

176

13 Comments

Can you relate to Maya? Managing multiple locations shouldn’t feel this complicated, but for many operators, it does. If this feels familiar, it might be time to rethink how your systems are working together. You can schedule a strategy session here: https://hubs.li/Q04cQnmC0 #AttractionsIndustry #MultiLocations #Operations #CustomerExperience #Leadership

1

🎁 Free Scan #1 of 10 is here! (new pack) 🚀 Production-ready asset for Virtual Production, pre and post-production. Over the next 10 weeks, I'll be releasing a new, hyper-detailed 3DGS scan each week for you to use in your projects. This is a continuation of our large library of assets for the film industry. We're starting with this beauty: ➡️ https://lnkd.in/dw_xhXRn Want access to our entire, constantly growing library of free scans? Let me know, and I'll send you the link. I share goodies like this in almost every post, so stay tuned! Why is 3DGS the new reality for filmmaking? This isn't just "another technology"; it's a fundamental shift. Instead of spending weeks on pre-production, imagine this: ✅ Pre-production in hours, not days: We scan a complex location in a couple of hours. The director and DP can "walk" through it in VR the same day, planning every shot. ✅ No more "plastic" look: The main pain point of VP is the "game engine feel" of virtual sets. Our scans are a direct capture of the real world. We use a hybrid approach: LiDAR for huge spaces and custom multi-camera rigs for "hero" assets to ensure every detail is photorealistic. ✅ Seamless Integration: We don't just hand you a.PLY file. We are your R&D team. We'll show you and introduce you to the best solutions and plugins on the market for Unreal Engine, Unity, Nuke, After Effects, and Houdini, so you can painlessly integrate these assets into your pipeline. 🛠️ Hardware: An Honest Conversation XGRIDS scanners in Europe. But I'm not here to just sell you a product. I'm a practitioner, and my job is to help you choose the right tool. ➡️ LiDAR Scanners (XGRIDS): Perfect for massive scenes. But they have their flaws (dynamic range issues, "sky sticking"), which I write about often. If you buy a scanner through us, you get my personal, extensive expertise and consultation on how to work around these issues and achieve ideal quality. ➡️ Custom Rigs: For "impossible" tasks that require maximum detail (like in projects for Apple or Meta), I create unique multi-camera systems. If standard equipment can't do the job, we invent it. 🤝 Let's Build the Future Together! We're looking for interesting teams and projects to collaborate with. If you want to integrate 3DGS/4DGS into your pipeline but don't know where to start, or if you have an ambitious idea that others have dismissed, you've found the right person. Calendar: https://lnkd.in/dX_Gf9G5 Is the xgrids lixel l2 pro price justified for a small studio? Maybe not. Rent it or hire a pro. But if you do huge sites, this lidar for construction is a money printer. Here is the ROI breakdown: https://lnkd.in/dPPg6FQf XGRIDS & Nucleus4D #3DGS #4DGS #VirtualProduction #ImmersiveCinema #VolumetricFilm #LEDStudio #PostProduction #FilmMaking #Teleportour #ShramkoScan #Volinga #xgrids #volumetric #photogrammetry #ShramkoVR #ShramkoCamera #ShramkoSoft

277

31 Comments

Weekly Houdini Tip #5 - Small-scale flame simulations Recently I've been doing some RnD on small-scale fire simulations and wanted to share a few tips on how to make your small flames (like candle, matchstick, zippo, alcohol, stove flames etc.) look physically accurate and believable. I found Attila Torok's SIGGRAPH 2022 talk particularly insightful and informative, so the main ideas I’ll share here are inspired by his approaches and techniques for creating realistic and good-looking flames. First of all, to achieve realistic small scale flame motion, one key aspect is adding viscosity to the simulation. For a candle flame I set the viscosity to around 0.5. This helps stabilize the flame shape and prevent excessive flickering or breakup. I'm not using any turbulence or disturbance forces here, it's just clean sourcing of temperature, burn and velocity. For convincing shading, there are a few important things to keep in mind. Most of the visible light comes from the flame field, not the temperature field alone. Relying only on temperature for emission can result in an unrealistic shape and flickering flame. To create a flame with a transparent blue inner core and yellow outer edge, we'll need to simulate both the temperature and flame fields. To color the flame from transparent black --> blue --> yellow, here are two common methods: 1. Y-axis ramp (Quick, but limited) A simple approach is to apply a Y-axis-based ramp in post to fade the emission vertically. This works only in very controlled setups where the flame is strictly rising along the Y axis, such as a static candle. 2. Temperature-based ramping (More reliable) A better and more flexible method is to use the temperature field as a mask for vertical height. In this setup: - Emission intensity is driven by the flame field. - Flame color is controlled by the temperature field using a reversed color ramp (orange on the left, black on the right). However, it’s important that the temperature field fully encompasses the entire flame region. To ensure this, you can rasterize the temperature particles with a slightly larger pscale than normal. Check out the comments section to download the hip file for free. You can find more info on creating realistic fire effects in this Attila Torok's insightful presentation: https://lnkd.in/eGuAMAJF . . . #houdini #sidefx #karma #xpu #sidefxhoudini #fxtd #fxartist #simulation #materialx #flame #pyro #smoke #emission #fire #tutorial #volume #light #solaris #lops #sim #candle

433

9 Comments

"Post-Production" can be a bit of a misnomer. Delivery dictates decisions on set. For example: - Checking aspect ratios with test footage - Building on-set LUT(s) - Early VFX asset capture - Verifying compatibility with capture codecs and NLEs - Purchasing drives, vetting post vendors, and firming up your post budget & schedule The list goes on. That's why I always offer to join pre-production calls. Even when things are moving fast and production is the primary focus, it's all interconnected, and planning for delivery early removes a huge amount of downstream stress.

25

3 Comments

for my vfx peeps who have an LLC i have a question. When you get hired for a gig, do you just ask to be paid through your LLC? And how receptive are they to that?

4

13 Comments

What if day and night grading didn’t require two completely different workflows? 🤔 This comparison shows something we’ve been refining at Vorton Studios LLP. Top: Day Grade using VFT Kodak 50D Bottom: Night Relight using VFT Kodak 500T Same shot. Two lighting conditions. One pipeline. Traditionally, creating believable day and night versions of a scene is slow. It often means rebuilding the grade from scratch adjusting exposure curves, rebuilding contrast, rebalancing colours, and then trying to restore texture that gets lost in the process. It works, but it’s complex and time consuming. With VFT "Vorton Film Technology" the process becomes more controlled. Because the VFT Pipeline is built around film behaviour rather than simple colour adjustments, the transition from day to night isn’t about forcing darkness, it’s about shifting the film response. • Kodak 50D keeps the daytime grade clean, balanced, and naturally bright. • Kodak 500T introduces the tonal behaviour needed for night environments. • Grain, colour response, and contrast adjust consistently with the stock behaviour. The result: • Day scenes stay natural and detailed. • Night relighting retains depth and texture. • The grade remains stable without rebuilding the image. Most importantly, this approach reduces the complexity of traditional workflows, allowing more clips to be graded faster while maintaining visual consistency. Efficiency matters when you’re working across large volumes of footage. But efficiency without accuracy is useless. That’s why the goal with VFT was simple: Make colour grading both precise and scalable. #VortonStudios #FilmEmulation #ColorGrading #Cinematography #FilmLook #PostProduction #DigitalIntermediate #Filmmaking

6

Check out the latest Weekly Wrangle interview with Tidals Chan - FX artist for Path of Exile at Grinding Gear Games. In this, we talk about gamedev, Tidals story, and how to align your skills for success if you're interested in making real time vfx. https://lnkd.in/g4CjWQ5X #sidefx #vfx #poe2 #3d #cgi #animation

27

No pithy hook for this one.  Just a thought about what separates quality from crap.  I think it's best described as "dynamic range". I regularly see vfx artists making demo reels full of bright flashing stroboscopic particle effects, dwarfing the character they are attached to.  Five different variations of the same effect.  But how can you possibly care?  There's no depth or subtlety to it when everything is turned up to 11. It's impossible to scroll through more than a dozen posts without seeing a character juggle some hapless punching bag of an enemy 20 times with exceedingly ridiculous airborne attacks, such that none of them stand out because they are all as over the top as they could be.  Turned up to 11. The lack of dynamic is desensitizing.  If you have no small, how can there ever be big?  If you have no quiet, how can you have loud?  The music industry figured out a long time ago that compressing the shit out of the music and pushing it as close to clipping as the storage medium allowed would make one song louder than the others... Until everyone did that and nobody is louder, just all max volume all the time. It's harder to be subtle.  It takes more effort to be careful.  It can be scary to trust the end user to notice the difference. Really great creatives get this, and embrace it, across all industries.  Quality requires the quiet.  It demands the small.  It should be obvious that without dynamic range, nothing you're making will have impact.  You're just making another forgettable pop song.

7

6 Comments

I’m thrield to share a project I’ve been working on one of the most time-consuming parts of the rigging pipeline: Naming conventions. Whether you’re working on a stylized game character or a complex VFX creature, this Python-based tool provides a quick solution for maintaining clean, scalable hierarchies in Autodesk Maya. Key Features: Context-Aware Naming: Specialized presets for Biped, Quadruped, VFX, and Game-ready skeletons. Smart Prefixes & Suffixes: Manual entry or automated "By Position" and "By Type" logic to ensure consistency across the rig. Advanced Search & Replace: Quickly swap characters or strings across complex hierarchies. Batch Indexing: Rename multiple objects with a clean, sequential numbering system. Flexible Scope: Apply modifications to your current selection, the entire hierarchy, or everything in the scene. Built for riggers who need precision and speed. I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts! This tool was one of many applications that we did inside Python workshop with Anas Elkinawy #MayaPython #Rigging #TechAnim #GameDev #VFX #Automation #Python

68

11 Comments

Please, consider not using AI voices, or internal resources for your concepts, pitches, animatics, etc... Let's find a way to use the same human talent (hopefully) you'll consider for the final!! Even the "union rate" for demo reads is pretty low, AND it gives you the chance to start the connection between talent, copy and client. If your client deserves YOUR creative talents... imagine the value added by a trained human artists! Cast them early! Have them standing by. Another tool in your toolbox, ready to make the project shine. In 2025 I worked on several projects that I was able to negotiate attractive demo-fees, so the producer could afford multiple adjustments or even full re-writes as we worked toward the final spot. When that final session date came, it was like old friends walking the path THEY CREATED! Smooth, tested and pre-approved! Adding VO doesn't have to be last minute every time. It can be early, and part of the creative process. 😉

511

148 Comments

VFX editorial has been building its own databases in FileMaker since 1985. The software has evolved. The problem hasn't. That should bother more people. Not because the industry loves old tools. Because nobody built the replacement. Why do count sheets still come as PDF documents? Why can't vendors access lineup info online? Why does every VFX Editor build their own database from scratch. Every show, every time, starting from zero? I got tired of asking. So I started building.

34

19 Comments

It has been 4 years now since we opened HAA, the first specialty school for animation in the US. 100% animation in person for 8 hours a day with training from experienced Hollywood animators and directors. Students learn with classical animation training and industry geared projects for film, games, and television. It has been a great joy to develop the kind of curriculum I wished I would have gotten from Cal Arts after working in the industry for 30 years. Most colleges leave their students without guidance on what they specifically need for a competitive portfolio today. Students do character designs and student films that are misguided and unpolished. We build projects that are industry relavent and train students 6 semesters deep in order for them to reach pro levels. We even help our students build their portfolio websites and teach them how to be a professional within a studio system. This is a school striving to lead education with cutting edge technology and experience. Learn feature storyboarding from experienced feature story artists. Learn TV production boards from primetime directors or TV board artists. Learn Previs from a top previs lead from Marvel and Universal. Learn game animation and cinematics from an experienced lead and game cinematic director. Learn Unreal Engine for filmmaking from feature and game directors. The animation industry is more challenging than ever and for serious students we offer one of the best solutions. Daily in person professional guidance with a structure that is second to none in practical real world training. In 2026 we launch our next intermediate level program for online students called Creative Edge and grow our 3rd year Mastercraft program with fantastic pro level projects. It's going to be an exciting year and we invite new students to check out our website and contact us if you are interested in learning more. https://lnkd.in/g8E8uFuU #animation

24

2 Comments

I couldn’t agree more. Before you start cooking, decide what you want to make so you know what ingredients to get.

1

Phoenix Sonic Atlas: Urban Fundamentals and 'their' Harmonics This is what freeway resonance and mechanical rhythms at 3 AM sound like through the lens of an orchestra. A small excerpt from my current orchestral work Mímēsis Lḗthēs for orchestra and field recordings, exploring how environmental sound can be reconstructed acoustically through listening rather than notation. #NewMusic #OrchestralMusic #FieldRecordings #ContemporaryMusic #SoundArt #Composition #Listening

7

4 Comments

My second ''Insight'' for Mixing Light, where I dive deep into the contrast operations in DaVinci Resolve. I explain why they work the way they do, so you can easily replicate the concepts in other software or environments — and, as usual, I give you more reasons to avoid Camera RAW altogether 🫡

7

1 Comment