Demo Reel - July 2026 Shaders and Tools I'm a technical artist who builds production-ready tools and materials, and I occasionally teach how I solved interesting problems. #Blender #UE5 #UnrealEngine #SubstancePainter #SubstanceDesigner #Shaders #Tools #TechnicalArtist #DemoReel #ShowReel #Portfolio

Before a #3D #environment becomes detailed and polished, artists first establish its basic structure through #blockout. Using simple shapes, they define scale, proportion, composition, and spatial relationships. This early stage provides a flexible foundation for experimentation, helping artists identify problems, test ideas, and build stronger environments before adding detail. This is my prop blockout for the third week of #Blocktober.

Horror is getting a next-gen upgrade! SILENT HILL: Townfall uses Unreal Engine 5 to deliver an unsettling psychological horror experience, blending atmospheric environments, immersive storytelling, and cutting-edge visuals to keep players on edge. The latest developer interview explores how the team harnesses UE5's technology to build a haunting world where tension and uncertainty are just as important as what players see. From detailed environments to carefully crafted lighting and atmosphere, every element helps deepen the sense of dread. As a new entry in the iconic Silent Hill franchise, Townfall aims to offer a fresh perspective on psychological horror while preserving the series' signature unease and mystery. For game developers and horror fans, this is a fascinating look at how modern real-time rendering technology can support powerful storytelling and immersive game design. Discover how Unreal Engine 5 helps bring the nightmare to life! Read More: unrealengine.com/developer-i… #SilentHillTownfall #SilentHill #UnrealEngine5 #UE5 #GameDev #HorrorGames

The world of Avatar: The Last Airbender is expanding, and the visual effects team behind Season 2 is gearing up to bring more elemental bending, epic battles, and fantastical environments to life! Marion Spates joins the production as Production VFX Supervisor, alongside Adam Chaszen as Production VFX Producer. Their roles are central to coordinating the visual effects work that helps translate the beloved animated series into a live-action spectacle. From firebending and water manipulation to elaborate creatures and immersive landscapes, the series presents a wide range of creative and technical challenges for VFX artists and production teams. With its rich mythology and ambitious world-building, the upcoming season offers another opportunity to showcase the artistry, innovation, and collaboration behind modern episodic visual effects. For VFX professionals and Avatar fans alike, Season 2 is one to watch. Discover the production team's latest updates via Art of VFX. Read More: artofvfx.com/avatar-the-last… #AvatarTheLastAirbender #VFX #VisualEffects #Netflix #CGI #FilmProduction

Character riggers and animators, take note! mGear 5.4 is here, bringing powerful new features to Maya with a free, open-source character rigging framework. The latest release introduces Facial Rigger 3.0, unifying eye, lip, and brow rigging into a single system for a more streamlined workflow. Spring Manager 2.0 adds new simulation options, including Classic Gravity and Bone Dynamics solvers, for enhanced secondary motion. Anim Picker 2.0 delivers a redesigned interface with SVG shapes, interactive widgets, viewport pins, mirroring, and conditional visibility. Animators can also explore Blocking Ghosts, a 3D onion-skinning feature that displays character poses across keyframes. The update also brings three new Rigbits tools for importing and exporting Lattice, Shrink Wrap, and Proximity Wrap deformers. Better yet, character rigs now build approximately twice as fast. Compatible with Maya 2022+ on Windows, macOS, and Linux, mGear is available for free. Read More: cgchannel.com/2026/10/get-fr… #mGear #Maya3D #Rigging #Animation #VFX #3D

Blender is hiring! The team behind the popular open-source 3D creation suite has announced two new full-time opportunities for developers passionate about 3D technology. The openings include a Senior Software Engineer and a Junior/Regular DevOps Engineer. The Senior Software Engineer role calls for strong C++ skills, cross-platform development experience, and Python scripting knowledge. Remote candidates may be considered, although relocation to Amsterdam is welcomed. The DevOps position focuses on Python or Shell scripting, Git/Git LFS, Unix-based systems, and infrastructure-as-code. This role requires working on-site at Blender HQ in Amsterdam. The salary ranges are €56,000–€82,000 gross annually for the Senior Software Engineer and €42,000–€66,000 for the DevOps Engineer, depending on experience. Benefits include paid holidays, five weeks of vacation, and a training budget. Interested in joining the Blender team? Explore the requirements and application details! Read More: 80.lv/articles/blender-is-hi… #Blender #Jobs #SoftwareEngineering #DevOps #3D

Anime fans, get ready for a major ninja crossover! Naruto and Ninku are joining forces for a brand-new four-episode anime series, announced at New York Comic Con. The collaboration brings together Masashi Kishimoto’s iconic Naruto characters and Koji Kiriyama’s Ninku, the influential ninja manga that helped inspire Naruto. Produced by Studio Pierrot, Naruto×Ninku will be supervised by both creators, with Noriyuki Abe directing and Tetsuya Nishio handling character design and chief animation direction. The project grew from Kishimoto’s desire to see Ninku continue, making this crossover both a celebration of anime history and a tribute to one of Naruto’s creative influences. Alongside the anime announcement, Kishimoto is also returning to manga with Naruto: Shadow Rising. No release date has been revealed for the crossover yet, but this collaboration promises an exciting meeting of two ninja legacies. Which characters are you most excited to see together? Read More: cartoonbrew.com/anime/naruto… #Naruto #Ninku #Anime #Manga #StudioPierrot

Love the look of classic PlayStation 1 and Nintendo 64 games? A free online archive is making it easier to explore the low-poly 3D models and game assets that defined an era of gaming. From blocky characters and retro vehicles to environments and nostalgic props, these collections offer a valuable resource for artists interested in the visual language of early 3D games. Beyond nostalgia, retro assets are useful for studying polygon budgets, texture limitations, silhouette design, and the creative techniques developers used to work within the hardware constraints of the 1990s. Indie developers can also draw inspiration from these models for retro-style games, while 3D artists can use them as references for recreating the distinctive PS1 and N64 aesthetic. Whether you're building a low-poly world, researching gaming history, or simply revisiting classic graphics, this archive is worth exploring. Read More: 80.lv/articles/free-online-a… #GameDev #LowPoly #PS1 #Nintendo64 #3DArt #RetroGaming #GameAssets

Marvel’s #VisionQuest is bringing a new chapter of the MCU to life, exploring the next stage of Vision’s journey after the events of WandaVision. The upcoming Disney+ series follows the synthezoid as he searches for meaning, identity, and purpose, promising a story that blends science fiction, superhero action, and emotional storytelling. Behind the scenes, visual effects play a crucial role in bringing Marvel’s advanced technology, synthetic characters, and futuristic environments to the screen. From digital character work to complex compositing, the series continues the MCU’s tradition of combining practical filmmaking with cutting-edge VFX. For artists and fans interested in the craft behind Marvel productions, the latest coverage from The Art of VFX offers a closer look at the project and its visual effects team. As the MCU continues to expand its television universe, VisionQuest is another opportunity to explore the intersection of character-driven storytelling and large-scale visual effects. Read More: artofvfx.com/visionquest/ #Marvel #VisionQuest #VFX #VisualEffects #CGI #DisneyPlus #MarvelStudios

How do you flood London without flooding London? Rebel Unit reveals the impressive visual effects work behind The End We Start From, transforming familiar urban environments into a waterlogged, post-apocalyptic landscape. The production combines practical filming, detailed digital environments, and sophisticated FX simulations to create the film’s devastating vision of a city overwhelmed by catastrophic flooding. From rising water levels and submerged streets to convincing interactions between water, buildings, and debris, the work demonstrates how visual effects can turn a real-world location into a believable disaster scenario. Creating large-scale flooding presents unique technical challenges, including realistic fluid behavior, complex reflections, environmental integration, and maintaining continuity across shots. The results depend on close collaboration between artists, technical directors, and filmmakers. For Houdini artists, FX supervisors, and environment specialists, this breakdown offers a fascinating look at the craft behind cinematic water simulations and large-scale environmental destruction. Read More: cgchannel.com/2026/10/see-ho… #VFX #CGI #Houdini #RebelUnit #VisualEffects #FluidSimulation #Filmmaking

Clean quad topology after complex Boolean cuts? A new Blender tool aims to make that workflow easier for 3D artists. Boolean operations are incredibly useful for hard-surface modeling, allowing artists to create precise cuts, holes, and complex shapes. However, cleaning up the resulting geometry and maintaining production-friendly quad topology can be a major challenge. This tool focuses on simplifying that process, helping artists create cleaner geometry around Boolean-style cuts while reducing the need for tedious manual retopology. For hard-surface modelers working on game assets, mechanical designs, product visualization, and detailed props, tools like this can help speed up modeling workflows while keeping meshes easier to edit and refine. Better topology means more flexibility for further modeling, subdivision, and asset preparation, making efficient geometry management an important part of professional 3D production. If you work with Blender and regularly create complex hard-surface models, this is worth checking out. Read More: 80.lv/articles/blender-tool-…

Ever wondered how Batman’s incredible flying vehicle was brought to life on screen? Behind the scenes of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, the iconic Bat required a remarkable combination of practical engineering, motion-base technology, wire work, and visual effects. A new feature from befores & afters explores how the production created the illusion of Batman soaring through Gotham. From the specially built physical vehicle to the complex stunt setups and digital enhancements, the work demonstrates how practical filmmaking and VFX can work together to deliver convincing, large-scale action. DNEG contributed visual effects that helped sell the Bat’s movement and integrate the vehicle seamlessly into the film’s spectacular sequences. It’s a fascinating look at the ingenuity, collaboration, and technical problem-solving behind one of modern superhero cinema’s most memorable vehicles. Read More: beforesandafters.com/2026/10… #TheDarkKnightRises #Batman #VFX #DNEG #VisualEffects #Filmmaking #CGI

Rizom-Lab (@RizomUV) has released RizomUV 2027.0, bringing major workflow, performance, and pipeline improvements to its professional UV unwrapping and packing software. The update introduces a map-based texel density workflow, allowing game artists to allocate texture resolution more intelligently using ambient occlusion data. This offers greater control over texture budgets and helps prioritize important surface details. Artists also get a redesigned, fully customizable workspace, movable and dockable panels, custom toolbars, and improved navigation for complex scenes. Under the hood, UV unfolding now processes islands in parallel for improved performance. A new headless mode enables batch processing and automated workflows, while Python becomes the default scripting language. Additional improvements include glTF 2.0 support, expanded USD integration on macOS, and enhanced FBX handling for complex assets. For game developers, VFX artists, and 3D professionals, RizomUV 2027.0 delivers practical upgrades designed to streamline production. Read More: cgchannel.com/2026/10/rizom-… #RizomUV #UVMapping #3DArt #GameDev #VFX #CGI #3DModeling

Google is making game development more accessible with Playground, an experimental AI-powered platform that lets anyone create playable games using simple text prompts, without writing a single line of code. Launched through Google Labs, Playground allows users to build games from scratch, remix starter ideas, and customize gameplay mechanics, characters, physics, and environments through a conversational interface. Creators can test their games instantly, share them with friends, or publish them to a community gallery. The platform also supports multiplayer experiences and leaderboards, opening new possibilities for aspiring developers and creative enthusiasts. But Google has bigger ambitions. A planned integration with Unity Spark will bring more advanced 3D capabilities, professional-level mechanics, and the flexibility of the Unity runtime, potentially helping creators evolve simple prototypes into richer interactive experiences. Currently available experimentally to US users aged 18 and older, Playground signals another major step toward AI-assisted game creation. Read More: 80.lv/articles/google-releas… #Google #Playground #AI #GameDev #GameDevelopment #Unity #GenerativeAI

DC’s #Clayface is bringing a darker, more terrifying vision of Gotham’s iconic villain to the big screen. The latest featurette offers a behind-the-scenes look at the upcoming horror thriller, exploring Matt Hagen’s disturbing transformation from Hollywood star to a monstrous figure as his body and mind begin to unravel. Directed by James Watkins, the film embraces psychological tension and body horror, taking a more intimate and unsettling approach to one of DC’s most fascinating villains. The visual effects are being created by Framestore, Red Visual Effects, and an in-house team featuring Lee Watson and Gillian Simpson. Production VFX Supervisor Angus Bickerton and VFX Producer Nikeah Forde are overseeing the work. With its emphasis on transformation, disturbing imagery, and a grounded horror aesthetic, Clayface promises a fresh take on the DC universe. The film is scheduled to hit US theaters on October 23, 2026. Read More: artofvfx.com/clayface/ #VFX #DCStudios #CGI #VisualEffects #Clayface #Filmmaking

Want to recreate blockbuster-quality water simulations in Houdini? A new breakdown showcases an impressive FLIP fluid simulation inspired by the work of Wētā FX. The project explores the complexity of large-scale fluid dynamics, demonstrating how artists can create convincing water movement, splashes, and intricate interactions through procedural workflows. FLIP simulations are essential to modern VFX pipelines, powering everything from crashing waves and flooding environments to explosive splashes and cinematic destruction. Achieving convincing results requires careful control over fluid behavior, simulation resolution, particle detail, and surface meshing. For Houdini artists, projects like this offer valuable insight into the technical and artistic decisions behind production-quality fluid effects. Whether you're developing your simulation skills or looking for inspiration for your next FX project, this is worth checking out. Read More: cgchannel.com/2026/10/check-… #Houdini #VFX #CGI #FluidSimulation #SideFX #WetaFX #3DAnimation

PC gamers hoping to play #GTA6 through Xbox Cloud Gaming may need to rethink their launch plans. Microsoft has clarified that Grand Theft Auto VI will not be available to stream on PC through Xbox Cloud Gaming, despite earlier reports suggesting the service could offer a workaround for players without a console. Xbox Chief Strategy Officer Matthew Ball confirmed that the game will launch on Xbox on November 19, 2026, but will not be streamed exclusively or to PC. The clarification puts an end to speculation that cloud streaming could let PC players jump into Rockstar’s highly anticipated open-world adventure on day one. For now, Rockstar has yet to announce a PC release date, leaving Windows players waiting for official news about a native version. With expectations sky-high, the question remains: how long will PC gamers have to wait before exploring Vice City? Read More: 80.lv/articles/gta-6-won-t-s… #GTA6 #GrandTheftAutoVI #RockstarGames #Xbox #PCGaming #GamingNews

Step into the unsettling world of #Backrooms with a brand-new VFX breakdown from Roxel Creative. The team, led by Calvin Romeyn, associate visual effects supervisor on the film, reveals how visual effects helped bring the eerie, liminal spaces of the horror movie to life. The breakdown explores several standout sequences, including the striking found-footage opening, a suburban street alleyway, and the mysterious Vertigo Room. These environments showcase how carefully crafted visual effects can turn familiar spaces into something deeply unsettling. From environmental transformations to surreal architectural spaces, the work demonstrates the importance of composition, atmosphere, and seamless integration in building a convincing horror experience. For VFX artists and horror fans alike, this is an opportunity to look beyond the finished footage and discover the techniques behind the film's distinctive visual world. Read More: beforesandafters.com/2026/10… #VFX #VisualEffects #CGI #Horror #RoxelCreative #Filmmaking #Backrooms

How do you transform New York City into a haunting post-apocalyptic landscape? Framestore reveals the VFX magic behind Season 3 of #TheWalkingDead: Dead City. The studio’s latest breakdown showcases the creation of a devastated Manhattan, featuring iconic landmarks reimagined as ruins. Using Google Street View to establish the city’s 2010 appearance, the team built a period-accurate digital environment before unleashing destruction. Highlights include detailed CG recreations of a ruined Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building, plus a breathtaking aerial shot that dives down the side of the destroyed skyscraper. To handle Manhattan’s enormous scale, Framestore used a painterly approach, concentrating detail where viewers would look while making distant parts of the city increasingly impressionistic. The work also features CG eye replacements, blood, gore, and other character effects that bring the zombie-infested world to life. Read More: cgchannel.com/2026/10/see-fr… #VFX #Framestore #CGI #Houdini #VisualEffects #PostApocalyptic #TheWalkingDead #DeadCity

Before a 3D environment becomes detailed and polished, artists first establish its basic structure through blockout. Using simple shapes, they define scale, proportion, composition, and spatial relationships. This early stage provides a flexible foundation for experimentation, helping artists identify problems, test ideas, and build stronger environments before adding detail. This is my environment blockout for the second week of #Blocktober. #Blockout #Blender #Temple #Egypt #Environment #WorldBuilding

Unity is rethinking who gets to make games. Introducing Unity Spark, a new browser-based experience developed with Google that aims to make game creation accessible to everyone, with no prior Unity or coding experience required. Announced by Unity CEO Matt Bromberg, Spark goes beyond generating a game with a single AI prompt. The goal is to help people build, refine, and share original interactive experiences shaped by their own creative ideas. Artists can bring their visions to life, longtime gamers can experiment with new mechanics, and modders can explore entirely new possibilities. Integration with the Unity Asset Store also gives creators access to thousands of artist-made assets from the Unity community. The bigger vision? Breaking down barriers between playing games and making them, while celebrating the craft, creativity, and collaboration behind game development. Could browser-based creation open the door to a new generation of game developers? Read More: unity.com/blog/why-we-built-… #Unity #UnitySpark #GameDev #IndieGames #AI #GameDevelopment