This week, Blur’s Franck Balson and Gabe Askew join Chris to discuss the intricacies of cel-shading, which gives 3D visuals a unique cartoony look. You’ll find out how Blur combined advanced hacks and simple techniques to create stylized animation for Love, Death & Robots episode “Suits,” which features mech-touting farmers, and the frenetic trailer for Riot Games’ Valorant.

Franck also discusses his multi-cultural background and how he landed a job at Blur, while Gabe covers his previous job directing commercials in New York. They talk about what it’s like to get hired and work for Tim Miller and Blur Studio, and shed light on some of the approaches to animation that can bring characters to life.

Andrew Murdock is a man of many talents. His career began in a recording studio, alongside Chris Isaak, and he went on to join Mondo Media to work on gaming projects including The Daedalus Encounter and Westwood’s Blade Runner. After founding his company, Lots of Robots, he created his own short films, beginning with “Rocket Pants,” while producing scientific animations for National Geographic.

Today, Andrew still creates his own short films and he’s recently joined forces with 3ds Max creator Gary Yost on his “Inside Covid-19” VR project. Andrew discusses his independent approach to his projects’ sound and visuals, his passion for Chaos Cloud and tyFlow, and Automatron, his character animation plugin for 3ds Max

Intopolis aims to turn video game conventions on their head. Players assume the role of an art historian from the distant future, tasked with finding patterns in detailed, otherworldly artworks. In this podcast, the extraordinary talent behind the game, Kirsten Zirngibl, gives a fascinating glimpse into how she’s translated her imagination into a tangible, explorable world.

Kirsten discusses everything from her childhood in Ohio to her experiences working for companies including Google, Riot Games and Wizards of the Coast, as well as the real-world and virtual influences that have helped create Intopolis’s psychedelic visuals. She also offers insight into the array of technology she’s using to build her game’s environment, and gives her thoughts on why bright, positive worlds have never been more tempting.

In a little over a year, Mondlicht Studios has made a global name for itself in CG advertising projects. Its large-scale, award-winning images for Netflix series literally wrap around buildings, and it also provides animation, retouching, AR and VR services. Here, co-founders David Schaefer and Dmitriy Glazyrin tell Chris the story behind the studio.

You’ll find out about the technology David and Dimo use to create 95MP images, how media and advertising are moving away from stills and into animation, and how new AI tools make their lives easier. They also share some useful tips they’ve picked up from working in automotive CG and photography, and talk about how they add character and story to their images.

Is there anything Alessandro Cangelosi can’t do? Over the past 20 years, this versatile generalist has contributed to games, movies, documentaries, film studio idents and commercials for everything from computer accessories to tourist destinations. To handle this wide array of work, Alessandro uses software including 3ds Max, Houdini and V-Ray.

In this podcast, Alessandro tells Chris how he likes to get under the hood of his projects, embracing innovative tech and techniques to create stunning effects for movies including Independence Day: Resurgence and 2012. He also talks about his plans to invigorate Italy’s visual effects industry with his own school, and the courses he teaches for Gnomon Workshop and Skyup Academy.

Babak Bina has carved out an illustrious career in VFX — and now he’s passing his knowledge onto a new generation. Originally hailing from Iran,  the band Tool’s visuals inspired Babak to pursue graphic design in Toronto. He’s gone on to work for visual effects studios Double Negative, Method Studios and Scanline VFX on movies and TV shows, including Game of Thrones, Black Panther and Wonder Woman.

This year, Babak has also started teaching how to create weird and wonderful creatures at The Gnomon Workshop. He tells Chris what it’s like to teach students he’s never seen and the tools he uses to create believable characters. Babak also discusses his new role as co-director of short movie, “The Seahorse Trainer.”

Versatile and talented software engineer Yining Karl Li has taken an unconventional but successful approach to his career. He sideloaded a graphics degree onto his business degree and he was inspired to create his own renderer, Takua, by Alex Roman's "The Third and The Seventh" and V-Ray's rendering quality.

He's also made leaps and bounds with the development of Disney's in-house renderer, Hyperion. Used to deliver large-scale environments for Big Hero 6, Moana, Zootopia and the upcoming Raya and the Last Dragon, Hyperion sets itself apart with a breadth-first rendering approach, similar to the techniques used by V-Ray GPU. Karl discusses the intricacies of production rendering on increasingly powerful hardware, as well as the future of real-time and ray-traced rendering.

CG Garage’s 300th podcast features a true superstar of CG: 3D Studio and 3ds Max team leader Gary Yost. After working for an Atari magazine, in the mid 1980s, Gary became involved in software, eventually overseeing the development of 3D Studio from its early days as a DOS package to its limelight-stealing Windows release as 3D Studio MAX 1.0. He talks about how his five-person team (including one barely out of his teens) worked from home in the early-90s to create this pioneering, game-changing 3D software.

Today, Gary is returning to his artistic instincts with a high-tech short film about the COVID-19 pandemic, using superpowered 360-degree cameras, 3ds Max, V-Ray and Chaos Cloud to produce an immersive experience. It’s fascinating to hear about Gary’s experiences in computing and entertainment over the past few decades. He’s a rare character who can combine creative energy and technical know-how with a knack for choosing the right people for the right roles.

Maciej Kuciara has established himself as a go-to talent for awe-inspiring concept art. Originally hailing from Poland, Maciej quit university to create artwork for tabletop games, then landed jobs at video game developers People Can Fly (Painkiller), Crytek (Crysis) and Naughty Dog (The Last of Us), and then worked on movies including the Ghost in the Shell remake, Blade Runner 2049 and Terminator: Dark Fate.

Most recently, Maciej unleashed his short film “Showtime,” a painstakingly accurate homage to classic animes Akira and Ghost in the Shell. He tells Chris about his life behind the Iron Curtain, his love of role-playing games and anime, how working hard on major games and movies helped him bring his incredible vision to life — and his plans for its future.

Released earlier this year, V-Ray 5 for 3ds Max and V-Ray 5 for Maya represent a new generation of Chaos Group software that does more than just render. In this podcast, Product Specialist Alex Yolov and Software Tester Peter Matanov reveal the research and development process that’s expanded the capabilities of V-Ray.

You’ll discover how V-Ray 5 integrates the retooled V-Ray Frame Buffer, Light Mix, Light Path Expressions and the ACESCG color space, and how they make artist workflows more efficient. Peter and Alex also discuss how user feedback, testing on real-world productions and input from Vlado himself helped create this innovative new version of V-Ray.