& VFX TOOLS
Building the technology the next era of storytelling needs, and being deliberate about what that should be.
We build the technology our own films run on, and we make it available to the studios and partners who need the same thing. Our research is pointed at one question: what does the next era of storytelling actually need, and what should nobody build at all. Everything we make is developed inside live production, judged by whether the finished work moves an audience, and published openly, because the field advances when serious practitioners share serious work.
how the work gets made
We are building for the next era of storytelling, and that is a research problem long before it is a production one. Inside this studio is a research and engineering practice that builds the technology our own films run on, and it exists to take on the problems where the honest answer is that nobody has solved this yet and somebody will have to. Some of that is deep pipeline and rendering work, and some of it is machine learning aimed at the parts of production that consume artists rather than reward them.
We are deliberate about what we build, and that is a strategic position as much as an ethical one. Technology that makes an artist faster at work only they can judge is worth building, and technology that removes the judgment is not, so we do not build it however well it demonstrates. Every tool has to answer a question a real production asked and leave the creative decision with a person, because a studio that automates its own taste has nothing left worth hiring.
The only measure that finally matters is whether the finished work moves someone. Technically clean footage that makes an audience feel nothing is a failure no amount of render time will fix, so our research points at the things that actually carry feeling, from performance and light through to timing, weight, and the moment a shot stops being looked at and starts being believed.
None of this is reserved for our own films. Studios, productions and technology partners come to us for pipeline engineering, custom tooling and research partnership on problems too specific for anything sold off the shelf. Crucible and houdini_usd_gsplat are two of the results we have published openly, and they are examples of the practice rather than the extent of it. We publish because the field advances when practitioners share real work, and because you should not have to take our word for any of it when you can read the code.
what we believe
WE BUILD WHAT THE NEXT ERA OF STORYTELLING NEEDS.
WE ARE DELIBERATE ABOUT WHAT WE CHOOSE TO BUILD, AND WHAT WE REFUSE TO.
TECHNOLOGY SHOULD WIDEN AN ARTIST'S RANGE, NEVER REPLACE THEIR JUDGMENT.
WE PUBLISH EVERYTHING, BECAUSE THE FIELD ADVANCES WHEN THE WORK IS VISIBLE.
how we work
PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION INSIDE LIVE PRODUCTION
RESEARCH, ENGINEERING AND CONTROLLED EXPERIMENT
INTEGRATION INTO THE PRODUCTION PIPELINE
PEER REVIEW, OPEN RELEASE AND PUBLICATION
who this is for
The lab is for people who read the source before they trust the claim.
- Studios and technical directors who need pipeline engineering, USD and Hydra integration, or tooling built for a problem no vendor sells a product for.
- VFX supervisors and pipeline TDs evaluating USD, Hydra and Houdini approaches who want working code rather than a conference slide.
- Researchers and technical peers in the USD, Solaris and real-time graphics community looking for a partner on methods documented well enough to reproduce.
- Producers and creatives who want to know whether a studio's AI capability is real, and what it actually makes possible on their project.
the outcome
What every project in this discipline delivers.
- Production-ready pipeline tools
- Custom AI and rendering systems
- Research publications and method documentation
- Open-source releases