Digital Giant is using new technology to make it easier and faster to create photorealistic digital content. Joining Chris this week are the company’s Operative Dallas Carroll and VFX Supervisor/Partner Felix Urquiza, who go in depth on the way the company has been set up, and how it’s doing things differently.

CG car work is notoriously finicky. The challenge of making vehicles look real — as well as keeping up with every detail of the car design — increases year on year. Digital Giant has taken years of experience and found new ways to keep their process accurate and efficient, combining both real-time technologies along with offline rendering and making sure everything is synced up.

It’s a fascinating discussion of an area of CG which is at the forefront of the industry, and one which is experiencing sweeping changes thanks to social media and new technology.

Robh Ruppel has been on Chris’s most-wanted podcast guest list for a long time — and it’s not hard to see why. This talented designer, concept and visual development artist has a wealth of knowledge and experience, which makes this podcast utterly enthralling from start to finish.

Robh tells Chris about his adventurous career so far. From his early movie experience at effects shop Boss Film Studios to a sojourn to Wisconsin for Dungeons and Dragons; his tenure at Disney and his work at Uncharted games studio Naughty Dog; the roles he played on masterful comic-book movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and David Fincher and Tim Miller’s upcoming Love, Death, and Robot.

It’s Robh’s insight into the creative process that truly makes this podcast stand out. Referencing everyone from Sergei Eisenstein to Sergio Leone to Alfonso Cuaron, Robh delves into the technical and artistic choices which produce iconic cinematic imagery. He also talks about how big TVs and streaming services have changed the way entertainment is created and consumed and offers plenty of solid advice to up-and-coming artists.

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.

This week, Chris is joined by the versatile talent of John Hewitt. As a child, John was addicted to sketching and drafting everything he saw on TV, and this drove him into automobile design. After helping out on Schwarzenegger movie Eraser, John moved into visual effects and his impressive IMDb page includes credits on Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Star Trek Beyond and Alice Through the Looking Glass.

John’s career has taken him from visual effects in post-production to the movie-planning stages in previz. He discusses the differences between the two: the time-consuming and intricate crafting of beautiful FX shots versus the fast and furious timelines of previz. He also talks about his infamous shader networks for movies such as I, Robot and Transformers: Dark of the Moon, as well as how great previz can help directors make confident decisions and the future of film production.