r/vfx

https://reddit.com/link/1tkihpo/video/yy9erhcvto2h1/player

What did you think of this combination of tools for visual consistency? "I conducted a workflow test to create high-fidelity (4K) sci-fi sequences.

Process:

Images generated in REVE (focusing on the textures of the spaceship and nebula).

Image-to-video animation via MIRICANVAS.

Color correction and post-processing in SHOTCUT to maintain a high bitrate (above 80 Mbps).

I'm trying to understand the best way to maintain technical quality in AI-generated videos without compression compromising the visual appearance of the spaceships. Does anyone have any tips for maintaining even greater sharpness in smaller details?"

This is gonna sound like such a shitty post and I do apologize. My goal is not to drag anyone down, but going through LinkedIn recently, I’ve been quite perplexed to see who is finding work and who isn’t. I know a number of people (compositors) who are repeatedly finding work at some very reputable studios, at mid or even senior positions with demo reels that would frankly be satisfactory at the junior level, while other really talented colleagues are finding nothing.

I am by no means a rockstar in this industry. I’m only a mid with TV experience, but I’ve been told I have quite a good reel, and yet every application is met with a rejection.

I know a reel isn’t everything and maybe these people have very important connections, but I know for a fact some don’t, and yet they’re jumping from DNEG to Framestore to wherever or going from 6 months at a small studio to like WETA out of nowhere, and I can’t help but be baffled.

Again, apologies for such a shitty, jealous post, but these are tough times and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t frustrated to see less qualified people getting hired while I remain unemployed.

Hey everyone,

A while back, I shared a post here that ended up getting a lot of traction. Surprisingly, it led to a VFX studio reaching out to me directly with a classic pipeline headache: their team was losing hours every week just manually setting up shot folders and matching incoming client plates.

They brought me on to see if we could fix it, and we were able to completely eliminate their daily ingest bottleneck. I wanted to share the experience because it’s a problem I know a lot of studios struggle with.

The Headache Every time new Excel breakdowns and massive client plates dropped, coordinators and artists had to stop what they were doing. They were stuck manually creating directory structures, fixing naming conventions, and dragging heavy folders into the exact right spots. It was slow, tedious, and obviously prone to human error.

How We Automated It I built them a custom Node.js CLI tool to handle the heavy lifting. Instead of detailing the exact code (which is proprietary now anyway), here is the workflow we achieved:

• Zero Manual Folders: Instead of artists building directories by hand, the script reads their master shot list, sanitizes the text, and instantly generates the entire batch of shot folders based on their studio's template.
• Smart Ingestion: When a massive dump of client folders arrives, the script takes over. It reads the incoming directories, normalizes the names, and automatically routes and copies the heavy plates into the correct generated shot folders.
• Safe Failsafes: If an incoming folder doesn't match the master sheet, it doesn't break or overwrite anything. It safely skips it and logs it so the team knows exactly which specific files need manual review.

The Result The tool handles their folder generation and plate ingestion flawlessly now. We completely removed the human error element, and most importantly, the artists actually get to spend their time doing VFX instead of file management. I'm already looking at V2 upgrades to add structured audit logs for daily reporting.

I just wanted to share this because it was a really rewarding real-world problem to solve. If anyone else is dealing with a similar mess at their studio whether it's messy ingestion workflows or just drowning in manual file management feel free to drop a comment or DM me. I'm always happy to chat about how to automate this kind of stuff so you can get back to actual production!

Does anyone here use Adobe Media Encoder? If so, I'm curious what settings you guys use. I have a 32bit ProRes 422 HQ high quality and high file size 3D animation I'm making for a relative, and am trying to figure out the best of both worlds to encode to a smaller file size/or format/etc.

I've seen people say VBR is better than CBR and vice versa. Different profile settings, Level settings, Bitrate settings, etc.

Workflow so far: I rendered the animation out of Cinema 4D using Redshift with the ACES color space in EXR sequence, then composited it in After Effects, and then rendered out of After Effects as ProRes 422 HQ.

So, i’ve been doing a bit of research lately on what’s the best way to shoot scenes that require screen replacement is.
I’m not talking about the best way to replace the screens but on how to setup the screen that needs replacement in the edit/composite.

Do you leave the screen black? (reflections are in)
Do you add a greenscreen? (with track marks or not?)
Any other color?
Does it depend on the device you want the screen to be replaced (phone, pc, ipad?)

Any input would be very much appreciated since i’m doing a project next week that will need some shots with screen replacements.

Thanks!

Hi, I am getting a team together to post-produce a movie.

There is money to pay for your work.

It’s a feature film that has already been shot. At the moment, I already have a team working on compositing and environments, but right now I’m mainly looking for someone focused on 3D and FX work, especially things like fire, lightning, and similar effects.

Most of the shots are locked-off/still camera shots, and the movie is expected to be delivered within one year.

At this stage, I’m still putting together the VFX shot list, so I don’t yet know if there will be enough work to keep someone busy for the entire year, but I’m currently trying to better understand the number of 3D and FX shots the project will require.

Right now, I’m mainly trying to understand people’s availability and rates, so I can finalize the bid and properly estimate the project budget.

If you are interested, DM me and we can speak better

Hi guys !
I was wondering if there is a tool somewhere to create a cel shading effect, or having steps in our lighting directly in post production ?
I am curently trying to find a way to do a 3D shot with watercolor effect but for the shadows I wanted to see if there is a way to transform a PBR lighting pass into something more cartoony, therefore, cel shading (eventhough that's not 100% what I'm aiming at).
Thanks in advance !

I am curious to see where did people end up after leaving the industry, considering it incredibly big turnover rate.

Tell us, but keep it nebulous enough so you still keep your anonymity.

I am looking forward to your answers.

Hey everyone, I’m currently working/studying toward becoming an FX Artist focused on Houdini, simulations, destruction, pyro, crowds, etc. But lately I’ve been seeing a lot of negativity around the VFX industry — layoffs, unstable projects, AI discussions, long working hours, outsourcing, low salaries in some countries, and people leaving the industry after years. At the same time, I still see amazing artists doing incredible work on films, games, cinematics, and building successful careers remotely or freelance. So I wanted to ask honestly from people already in the industry: Is it still worth staying in VFX in 2026? As an FX Artist specifically, do you think the future is stable or risky? If you could restart your career today, would you still choose VFX? What skills are safest for the next 5–10 years? Is moving toward Technical Art, realtime FX, pipelines, or tools becoming more important? Can someone realistically build a good life financially in this field now? I genuinely love Houdini and simulation work, but sometimes the industry discussions online make it feel scary and uncertain. Would really appreciate honest opinions from juniors, seniors, freelancers, and studio artists. Thanks.

I've only just begun experimenting with Ollama to run models locally and started wondering if it's worth setting up a RAG pipeline, basically chunking the Nuke documentation into a vector database (ChromaDB or similar) so the model can retrieve relevant context before answering Python/expression questions.

The idea being: instead of the model hallucinating NukeX API methods, it's actually grounding its answers in the real docs.

Has anyone gone down this road? A few things I'm genuinely curious about:

• What model are you running locally and is it actually good enough for this kind of technical Python work?
• ChromaDB seems like the obvious lightweight choice but open to other opinions
• Is the retrieval quality good enough to be worth the setup overhead, or do you just get better mileage prompting a frontier model directly?

I know most of us aren't pipeline TDs so maybe this is overkill, but curious if anyone's actually put time into it?

Here is my situation. I would dearly and desperately love some feedback.

Folks,

I’ve been living in Vancouver for the last 10 years. For the past 22 years, I’ve worked as a visual effects artist, graphic designer, and CG artist, including the last six years in lead roles on multiple high-profile projects. Lived and worked across countries and cultures such as Japan, China, India and US.

In June 2025, I lost my job, and with that, everything came crashing down.

The media and VFX industry has been severely impacted globally, especially with the rise of AI and the shrinking of many companies. Several of the studios and companies I used to work with have either shut down or moved major parts of their operations to countries such as Australia, the UK, and India.

After being unemployed for almost 10 months, I eventually found work as a cleaner in an aerospace company, cleaning helicopter parts. I have been working there since March. Most of my days are now spent earning close to minimum wage, while I previously earned close to $70 an hour as a Lead.

This shift has had a major impact on my mental health, my household stability, and my ability to keep my family afloat while managing bills, mortgage payments, and daily expenses. Most of my savings are now gone.

With 22 years of experience in visual design, CG, project coordination, team leadership, and production management, along with a Bachelor of Technology degree in Information Technology, I’m now trying to figure out where I can realistically pivot next.

I’m currently gaining experience in a highly secure and federally compliant aerospace environment, working with helicopter components and beginning to learn areas such as disassembly of MGBs, or main gearboxes. But honestly, I’m still unsure what the right next step is.

At this stage, I would truly appreciate any advice, suggestions, referrals, or guidance from anyone who has been through a major career transition or knows of opportunities where my background could be useful.

Any help, direction, or connection would mean a lot.

Hi everyone,

I’m considering buying a MacBook Pro with an M4 Max chip, mainly because I need a powerful portable workstation while traveling.

I work in VFX/compositing and mostly use Nuke, but I’m also learning and planning to use Houdini more seriously for 3D, FX, simulations, procedural work, and possibly rendering.

I understand that a MacBook is not a full replacement for a powerful desktop PC with an RTX 4090, especially for heavy GPU rendering or CUDA-based workflows. But portability is important for me, so I’m trying to understand how realistic it is to use an M4 Max MacBook as a main working machine.

I’d really appreciate feedback from people who use Apple Silicon Macs for production work:

• How well does Houdini run on M4 Max in real projects?
• How is the performance with simulations, caching, Vellum, Pyro, FLIP, particles, volumes, etc.?
• Are there any serious limitations with rendering, GPU acceleration, Karma, Redshift, Octane, Blender, or other render engines?
• How stable is Nuke on Apple Silicon?
• Is 64 GB of unified memory enough for serious VFX/3D work, or would you recommend more?
• What are the biggest problems or limitations you’ve faced?
• Would you choose an M4 Max MacBook again, or would you rather build/buy a Windows/Linux workstation?

I’m especially interested in real production experience, not just benchmarks.

Thanks!

I don't want to elicit groans from the crowd here but I thought it might enlighten some and interest others. Never have I been in a position to see a film I worked on, on a streaming service, months before being paid. Also probably the most chaotic production I'd ever been part of, which is saying something.

As we approach a full year since the work commenced, I am skeptical of ever being compensated for the efforts and need to vent if only into the void of reddit with echos heard by the rest of my VFX brothers & sisters (some of you who know what this is like).

For my part I started the work in earnest, working with familiar faces assuming there was some security in that. Over time the incremental payments were not just delayed but stalled entirely. Assuming the best-intentions by the production we'd continued work to keep moving forward and support each other. In retrospect this was sunk-cost fallacy in action but at the time we felt as if there was no choice, and the producer and the director continued to reassure people that everyone would be paid.

By the time delivery came around everyone was nervous. Do they just hand over everything with no evidence of forthcoming payments? The deliverables were sent, and with it all possible leverage. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach, why does my gut have to be right all the time?

For those of your rolling your eyes, yes we had contracts, no the terms were not met, and unless someone enforces these things they are only vague assurances, especially when dealing with remote work/overseas clients. I can't begin to explain how disappointing this is especially considering the general downturn in VFX work and the increase in both AI hype, and vendor closures

Its seems now in retrospect the producers were gambling with money they didn't have, making huge promises to their distributers, the audience and the team doing the VFX leg work which was what this film hinged on. I have to assume now that multiple people involved were operating on bad faith.

Been thinking about this a lot lately, especially with how much the conversation has shifted from "will AI replace VFX artists" to "okay so where does it actually slot in usefully.", From what I can tell, the stuff that's genuinely working right now is more on the unglamorous end, rotoscoping, cleanup, AI-estimated depth maps, matchmove assist, early concepting, that kind of thing. Not the sexy final-shot magic people were promising a couple years ago, and honestly that hype still hasn't really landed. AI denoising feels like the clearest win at this point, it's basically standard in most major, renderers now and it just quietly fits into existing lighting and render workflows without much drama. The more generative stuff is trickier to pin down. ComfyUI gets brought up heaps in these conversations and I think "experimentation layer" is still a fair description for a, lot of uses, though it's worth saying some studios are running it in more pipeline-adjacent ways now, not just hobbyist tinkering. It's a node-based workflow interface so the results really depend on what models and tools you're plugging into it, ControlNet, SAM, inpainting, that kind of stack. Useful for generating reference, prototyping ideas, or handling narrow steps before you commit to a full pipeline. The depth map thing is real but worth flagging that quality and consistency are pretty variable and usually need cleanup, it's not a reliable out-of-box solution. Biggest wall I keep hearing about is temporal consistency and deterministic control, anything needing shot-to-shot reliability, or tight art direction still needs a human watching every frame, and that's not a small caveat. Curious what people here are actually using day to day, real production use vs. just playing around. And whether anyone's found ways to integrate genAI tools into a Nuke or Resolve workflow that actually holds up under proper delivery standards.

I'm sorry if this is the wrong subreddit to ask this, let me know if there's a better one, but I've seen people posting gore sfx here, so I thought I'd ask! I have some gore art I want to draw, but I really really hate looking at real images. VFX and gore art though really interest me and I don't mind that. I thought some people here might know good references, like even movies that have done it well or gore artists that draw accurately? I'd love general recs, but I also specifically want to draw someone with this part of their abdomen missing, so let me know if you know anything. Thank you! ◡̈

https://preview.redd.it/li8lsxm1e92h1.png?width=549&format=png&auto=webp&s=1a17e065577bbe187de671c08771113706f92348