CGarchitect has become a massive part of the global archviz community. The all-in-one site incorporates LinkedIn-style job listings, the latest industry insights, and a super-smart AI-powered gallery that curates impressive renders from thousands of submissions. And now, CGarchitect has become part of the Chaos family.

In this podcast, Chris is joined by CGarchitect founder Jeff Mottle as he prepares to pass the mantle of running the site to Chaos’ Director of Creative and Communications, Lon Grohs. Jeff goes into detail on why he founded the site, how it works, and the exciting next steps for his career, while Lon talks about the future of CGarchitect, what it means for its community, and its first major change: to a completely free model for all users.

Darin Grant is back! And a lot has changed in the three years since the Animal Logic group chief technology officer and general VFX genius last recorded with Chris. As always, Darin offers expert industry insight into the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on working from home, cloud computing, and how digital content is created and consumed.

Darin also details his role as director of the Electronic Theater at this year’s SIGGRAPH conference. You’ll learn about some of the stunning and deeply moving entries in the computer graphics showcase, plus what physical and virtual attendees can expect. Listen to find out Darin’s interesting idea for blockchains, and to find out how Animal Logic is refocusing its VFX work on animation via movies including Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway and Super Pets.

Is Huxley the new Star Wars? This week, Chris chats to Ben Mauro, the film and game concept artist who single-handedly created Huxley, a comic book set in a richly detailed post-apocalyptic sci-fi universe. Thanks to the power of NFTs, Huxley has evolved beyond the pages of a graphic novel into something far bigger, with a film from Marvel producer Avi Arad in the works, plus trading cards, a potential TV series, and much more. 

Ben talks about the incredible journey of Huxley, from how he found motivation and inspiration to single-handedly create the comic book, to how NFTs have empowered him to focus on the project, to its exciting future. Ben also shares his savvy knowledge of how NFTs work and gives his thoughts on how big media franchises are cashing in on their astonishing rise, as well as explaining how to avoid rugpulls.

Joining Chris for this week’s podcast is Matteo Santoro, an energetic, enthusiastic, and versatile filmmaker who might just be revolutionizing the way movies are made. After graduating from art college, Matteo created opening titles and VFX for film including The Incredible Hulk, Aliens vs Predator - Requiem, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. At the same time, he created his own sci-fi IPs, including the short film Offline and the feature Higher Power.

Now, Matteo is working on SIFT, an ambitious sci-fi feature film constructed through NFTs, allowing fans to own parts of the movie and even shape its direction. Matteo discusses SIFT’s richly detailed world and how he built a practical robot to inhabit it. He also talks about The Sunflower Kid, a series of NFTs that aim to raise money for charity and promote world peace.

Judith Crow has seen both sides of the effects industry. After developing an enthusiasm for coding, she worked her way into Digital Domain, where she pioneered visual effects for Interview with the Vampire, Apollo 13, Titanic, and Fight Club. Then, she switched sides and took on a role with Houdini developer SideFX.

In this podcast, Judith talks about everything from her early days in community arts curation to how she got her foot in the door at Digital Domain and created visual effects for major Hollywood movies. She also discusses Houdini’s meteoric rise from particle-specialist to do-it-all VFX software, revealing some of its more interesting use-cases and plans for its future.