Andrew Maximov has a vision for how to change the gaming and CG industries from the ground up. His Promethean AI is a super-smart piece of software which allows designers, developers and artists to create and populate environments simply by asking for them via voice or text. It neatly cuts out the fiddly, time-consuming parts of the CG creative process, and allows users to get straight to the fun and interesting parts of decorating virtual sets.

In his chat with Chris, Andrew reveals how his work at Wargaming (World of Tanks) and Naughty Dog (Uncharted and Last of Us) led to the creation of Promethean AI. He and Chris also debate the creative industry's fears about AI's potential to replace jobs en masse, and Promethean AI’s potential applications in other areas such as e-commerce and storytelling.

Want to know more about Andrew and Promethean AI? Come to Total Chaos and see his presentation, as well as many more fascinating and inspiring talks.

Over almost 25 years, Phil Miller has helped bring products such as 3ds Max, Combustion, Dreamweaver, and NVIDIA’s commercial rendering solutions to market — and dabbled in his own software and his original vocation of architecture. Now, Phil has brought his wealth of experience and knowledge to Chaos Group where he serves as vice president of product management.

This podcast is a treasure trove of long-lost computing terms like Pentium processors, MS-DOS and ISDN lines. Phil gives a potted history of the ups and downs of technology, including the ingenious method he used to give plotted architectural illustrations a hand-drawn look, the success of his books on 3D Studio and 3ds Max, and how Chaos Group shook up the rendering industry with V-Ray RT.

Phil is always a few years ahead of his time, and the podcast concludes with his thoughts on the future of CG, real-time rendering via Project Lavina and why speed increases are only part of the battle.

Artificial intelligence has gone from sci-fi subject matter to part of our day-to-day lives via assistant services such as Apple’s Siri and machine learning which helps 3D artists create better work more quickly. But is this merely another technological leap forwards, like photography or computer-aided design, or a genuine threat to lives and livelihoods?

That’s the question Chris posed to an expert panel at this year’s THU festival. Among his guests were Daimler futurologists Sabine Engelhardt and Alexander Mankowsky, CG supervisor-turned-Google technical director Jeff Kember, anatomy specialist Scott Eaton and Lenovo’s head of media and entertainment Rob Hoffmann.

This entertaining, informative and occasionally heated debate tackles everything from the intricacies of neural networks and image learning, to the science and psychology of scents, and the way Netflix and Hulu stats help create entertainment precisely calibrated for certain audiences.

One of the best things about THU is having so many world-class experts in one place — something Chris took advantage of when he assembled this panel for a discussion on digital humans. The superstar lineup consisted of digital Rembrandt Ian Spriggs, CG pioneer Paul Debevec, ILM’s chief re-animator Hal Hickel, acclaimed anatomy artist Scott Eaton, and Naughty Dog lead character artist Frank Tzeng.

This debate tracks the evolution of digital characters through movies such as Spider-Man 2, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Wall-E, and The Incredibles. Chris and his guests tackle the challenges of building realistic digital humans, the shortcuts games take to present convincing characters on limited hardware, and how subtle artistic decisions can help inject personality and story. They also talk about the ethical conundrums of creating virtual people, and how the film stars of tomorrow might be AI-driven algorithms.

Alex's early career combined his passion for architecture with his love of theater, but an early experience with an Oculus Rift inspired him to move into the virtual arena. His company, Agile Lens, produces everything from quick virtual sketches to immersive photorealistic visualizations for the AEC industry.

In this podcast, Alex tells Chris why it's important to fasten your headset early on in the development process, some of the subtle cues he uses to guide participants around VR experiences, and the pros and cons of cutting-edge augmented reality gear such as the Microsoft Hololens and Magic Leap One. It concludes with an impassioned geek-out on favorite architects and dream VR architecture, as well as Alex's plans for XR Dads, a podcast on parenthood in the virtual age.

THU festival is a wonderful place filled with inspiring things; among them this year was this deep-dive panel discussion on the relationship between artists and their tools.

The superstar participants include famed traditional-leaning Visual Artist Phil Hale, visionary Gnomon School Founder Alex Alvarez, and prestigious Hollywood Concept Artist and Production Designer Dylan Cole. Representing the advanced tools today’s creators use to build worlds are Lenovo’s Media & Entertainment Manager Rob Hoffmann, and Chaos Group’s Co-Founder and CEO Peter Mitev.

Chris does a great job of steering the conversation and involving all his guests, and it covers everything from the relationship between traditional and digital art, the evolution of mediums from cave paintings to Zbrush, and how AI and accurate skin shaders are changing the role of the artist. You’ll find out about the development process behind V-Ray, and how building software and hardware has many similarities with creating art.

At Google’s Cloud Next ‘18 event in San Francisco earlier this year, a small team of CG artists and Google technicians took part in an audacious experiment: to create a Hollywood-quality animated short film in just three days. Fortunately, the team had a little help from Google’s Cloud Platform, a scalable and versatile system which gave them a huge amount of remote computing power.

In this enlightening podcast, Google Cloud Platform’s Adrian Graham and CG artist D. Ryan Reeb talk about the various pieces of technology which made Robot Dance Party possible: Teradici’s PCoIP remote workstations, Bebop’s orchestration layer, and Zync’s queue manager, as well as Maya, V-Ray for Maya and After Effects.

Adrian does a fantastic job of breaking down each component and explaining how it fits into Google Cloud’s slick infrastructure, while Ryan is a living testament to how it can save vital time on the front line of visual effects. Both also offer their thoughts on the future of cloud rendering, and how it will dramatically change the way the studios of tomorrow will be set up.

Want to try rendering on the cloud? Chaos Group is currently offering free rendering credits for anyone who takes part in our Google-powered V-Ray Cloud beta. Try it now!

Recorded at SIGGRAPH in Vancouver, this podcast features self-taught rendering expert Zap Andersson. Zap’s career in CG began early, with the modification of a Swedish ABC 80 computer so it supported higher resolutions, ray tracing, gaming, and even image editing and music sampling. His passion for computing propelled him into a career in CAD, then back into ray tracing, where he earned his “Shader Wizard” moniker for his implementation of subsurface scattering.

In the second half of the podcast, Chris asks Zap for his thoughts on the future of ray tracing, tackling some of the myths around physically based and spectral rendering, metalness, and real-time. As Zap reveals, the restrictions of any CG method ties into the limitations of how human beings are wired to perceive optical phenomenon.

It’s a fascinating deep dive into the theory of CG and the shape of things to come.

Fresh off a tour of America, INK Founder Dave Macey joins Chris and Lon to talk about how two unemployed arch viz artists started one of the UK’s most distinctive creative studios.

As well as working with everyone from BMW to Wired to Asics, the company has created side projects which range from the beautiful (stark Le Mans sportscars) to the bizarre (inflating 1970s vehicles). While its Workshop experiments don’t generate income, they’re a great way to spot talent in the company, experiment with new styles and techniques — and just have fun.

Dave also delves into his love of cars, and things that move quickly. He discusses the future of how we’ll get around, from the simplicity of Bird’s electric scooters to Elon Musk’s grand designs for the Hyperloop One, and the way automation will put our living rooms and offices on the road.

It’s awesome to hear from someone with an innate knowledge of the past and future of tech and transport.