When Fox Nation’s Revolutionary War docuseries called for A-list performances in historic American locations, GO delivered the future. Instead of flying talent across the country, GO recreated the Boston Tea Party and Mount Vernon as immersive SCAPEs using LiDAR, NeRF, and photogrammetry. In this panel, we’ll break down how GO brought Rob Lowe to a virtual Boston Harbor and Kelsey Grammer to a digital Mount Vernon—without ever leaving LA. From sustainability and cost-savings to creative flexibility, this is a case study in digital twin production, Autodesk integration, and the new blueprint for high-end, low-impact filmmaking.

Attend this session for an in-depth exploration of animation techniques in game development using Maya software. Gain valuable insights into hand-keyed animation, considering the demands of modern gaming environments. Dive deep into Maya software's sophisticated toolset, discovering how you can refine your animation process with precision and finesse. Learn an optimized workflow engineered for seamless integration with diverse game engines, facilitating the smooth transition of your animations into the game engine you work.

Embark on a flight above Westeros with the Rodeo FX animation department as they discuss the intricate work done on these jaw-dropping creatures for the latest season of HBO's smash hit House of the Dragon.

Teaching Tectonism to AI"" is an exploration that focusses on the convergence of AI and tectonism. Tectonism, as a leading subsidiary style of parametricism, poses a unique challenge for current text-to-image AI tools due to their limited comprehension of structural dependencies in architectural representations. The presentation will showcase the potential of merging structural topology generation tools with Generative Artificial Intelligence across various architectural typologies and how this is integrated into early stage ideations at Zaha Hadid Architects.

Bifrost is a powerful graphical programming environment for creating procedural visual effects simulations, geometry, rigging, and animation. In this session, we'll showcase new, modular, deep-learning workflows in Maya software using Bifrost. We will demonstrate how to use Bifrost for procedurally generating training data for AI systems, as well as how to deploy trained AI models in Bifrost using new Bifrost nodes designed for deep learning. The session will include practical examples of industry problems that are suited to a media and entertainment audience, such as using AI for complex rigging kinematic solvers.

Join Fernando Macedo—founder and COO of SPIRIT Animation Studios and creator of KARL's Animated Franchise—for an exclusive lecture that will unveil the challenging strategies behind creating a global franchise with more than 1 billion views. Whether you're a talented artist with big dreams or a business owner, this event promises invaluable insights that can catapult your venture to extraordinary heights. Since its debut at Disney Channel, KARL has evolved into a franchise with three seasons, spin-offs such as Karl Babies (season 2) and Ketchup Jack: A Villain Story (feature), games, and e-books—reaching audiences worldwide. Macedo will share knowledge about strategic brand development on how to craft a brand that resonates on a global scale; maximizing engagement across diverse platforms; and monetization strategies that ensure sustainable revenue. Macedo is a veteran industry leader frequently present at global pitchings. He was invited to be a juror at the 51st Annual Annie Awards, and was a speaker at SIGGRAPH Bogotá.

Join us for an insightful session on how Ayelet Studio, with just three artists and an 18-member team, created the narrative-driven game Unsung Empires: The Cholas using Maya software as a pivotal tool. Discover how we harnessed Maya software's powerful features for prototyping, modeling, and animation to streamline workflows and bring the game to life. Learn how the immersive experience—enriched by captivating storytelling, unique artistic styles, memorable characters, engaging dialogues, and evocative music—resonated deeply within the gaming community, fostering a sense of pride among players. Explore the secrets behind the success of Unsung Empires: The Cholas and gain valuable insights into using Maya for game development.

Web 3.0 is here, and industries and organizations need to be prepared to upgrade their existing content to 3D at scale. Many brands have already invested in 3D design to improve manufacturing, but haven't yet scratched the surface on the potential scalability with game engines to create interactive training, run simulations for better planning, or create more dynamic sales materials. How should organizations be thinking about their 3D strategies? Join Ashley Crowder, a pioneer in 3D and spatial computing technology, who will demo how 3D assets can be interoperable and used across the metaverse, e-commerce, product lifecycle management (PLM), and more to improve employee training, increase speed to market, and boost sales. She will present case studies—including Kohler, Merrell, and Michael Kors—that provide real-life examples on best practices for 3D designs from AutoCAD, Maya, and 3ds Max software to Unreal Engine, Unity, and web viewers. From design to e-commerce to B2B sales, learn how build a winning 3D strategy.

It's 2023 and you've been wondering "WTF is USD?” You're not alone! Software never stops evolving, and it is easy to feel left behind when new tech enters the scene. Funny enough, that is exactly what USD is aiming to address. USD stands for Universal Scene Description, and it is an open-source initiative, meaning it is being built in a public facing manner, without any single company claiming ownership of its development. Rather, multiple companies share the same vision – a world where sharing production assets among programs is consistent, reliable and easy. In this class you will learn USD's origin, where its currently at in the Media & Entertainment Industry, where it is headed, and how these techniques and technologies add benefit to any industry pipeline.

In this session, we'll show a pipeline concerning the benefits of moving content from Autodesk products to Unreal Engine and Twinmotion Engine.

With recent advances in generative models, many industries must adapt to offer more-intuitive solutions to interact with their expert software. The challenge ahead is to combine this expert knowledge with artificial intelligence (AI) to include more-natural ways of interacting with our tools while remaining precise and controllable. In this talk, we will discuss our solution to achieve this for content creation in Maya software. We'll present a high-level overview of the architecture to better understand the integration of the Microsoft Azure OpenAI services in our product. Then, we will discuss how we improved the inference model bridging the gap between research and production. We'll also show a demo of our plug-in in Maya software on a complex scene. You'll leave this session knowing how to prepare a proper data set for code generation from prompt, how to design a structured context improving the accuracy of the generated response, and how to maximize custom embeddings to handle more-complex use cases.

In this talk, we look at the variety of features and toolsets inside Maya that can be leveraged by artists to create compelling and engaging animated performances, in sometimes unexpected ways.

This class will present a fast, easy-to-use workflow for creating great-looking renders using Maya software with the GPU-based Redshift Renderer. This hands-on class has the indie artist and 3D generalist in mind, instead of the big company with an army of specialized artists. The Redshift Renderer is widely used in the industry and can give you realistic-looking images in a fraction of the time needed with other renderers. Nevertheless, Redshift's integration with Maya can be confusing in the beginning. This class will cut to the chase and show you how to set up your model in Maya; select the correct Redshift shaders; prepare your materials, lights, and lens effects; and finally render your image using the two available modes in Redshift: Production and RT (Real Time). You'll learn about lens effects, denoisers, AOVs, and VDB rendering.

Digital models are the key to unlocking improved sustainability and lower costs in product design. This session will explore groundbreaking techniques for using 3ds Max and Maya software to create realistic 3D assets that designers can trust and rely on, eliminating the need for physical samples. Discover how physically based rendering (PBR) extensions generate assets with an accurate and tactile appearance. Learn how to render PBR assets consistently across various contexts for seamless collaboration. See how to maximize reusability by creating asset variations for other departments once the design is complete. Based on real-life examples from major retailers, this session demonstrates the compelling advantages of digital design: significantly reducing waste, eliminating delays, and cutting costs throughout the design process. Revolutionize your product design workflow with 3D assets that replace the real thing.

This session is for admins who want to learn more about the steps required to transition to named user. We will cover step-by-step instructions that will help you add users with our four invite workflows, assign users to your subscriptions with import to assign and active directory group sync, update your license type to a named user subscription using automation or self-service by end users, and detail the new sign-in process for your users. Attendees will leave the session ready to transition and set up their new named user subscriptions in the most efficient way possible.

Jason Martinsen is an animation industry professional with 18 years of animation experience at companies like Naughty Dog, Sony, Blue Sky, DNEG, Coalition, Moon Studios, and Reel FX. In this session, he will talk about some animation tips and tricks he’s learned throughout the years. He will gear the discussion toward animation professionals and students, and the topics covered will use terminology unfamiliar to non-animators.

In this session, we’ll walk through real-world examples that showcase how developers and pipeline engineers can programmatically submit, manage, and monitor compute-intensive tasks in the cloud. Using the Job and Resource APIs from the Flow Graph Engine API, you'll learn how to offload simulations, batch process assets, and streamline repetitive workflows using Bifrost as a cloud executor. This API-first approach frees up local machines, accelerates production, and enables scalable parallel execution—helping teams reduce turnaround time and improve pipeline efficiency. Whether you're building internal tools or optimizing large-scale asset generation, this session will offer practical insights into integrating cloud-based compute into your 3D production workflows.

This class will present a fast, easy-to-use workflow for creating a dynamic cinematic scene using Maya software (modeling, setup, and animation) and Unreal Engine (layout and rendering). This hands-on class has the indie artist and 3D generalist in mind, instead of big companies with armies of specialized artists. Unreal Engine is widely used in the industry as a powerful, real-time rendering alternative to more-traditional renderers. Unreal Engine is a perfect companion to Maya, letting you achieve high-quality renderers in a fraction of the time needed with other renderers. Nevertheless, Unreal Engine’s integration with Maya can be very confusing for beginners. This class will cut to the chase and show you how to set up your cinematic scene in Maya, and give you best practices to properly export it to Unreal Engine. Then we will show you how to set up everything again inside Unreal Engine, how to lay out your cameras and edit in Unreal Sequencer, how to apply post effects, and, finally, how to export your final cinematic scene.

We believe every content creation organization (CG-VFX) using Flow Production Tracking software in some way faces challenges when transferring data between its offices or with its outsourced vendors and clients. To address these challenges, we designed and developed a UDP-based high-speed application in sync with Flow Production Tracking. FastX is highly reliable for all types of data movements—transfers of scans, work files, final output, multisite/remote renders, CG Files, vendor output, files to DI, disaster safe backup, and final output to clients. Most of the transfers mentioned resemble work related to the CG-VFX industry. But FastX was actually designed to address many industries that deal with high-volume data transfers in daily operations.

In this session, we’ll explore the fundamentals of creating expressive facial animation in Maya software, with a strong focus on design and appeal. From understanding key facial shapes to enhancing emotions with nuanced details, we’ll break down essential techniques that bring characters to life. We’ll also discuss how strong posing, clear silhouettes, and exaggeration contribute to readability and charm, ensuring that every expression feels intentional and engaging. This lecture will provide insights to elevate your facial animation with both technical precision and artistic appeal.