Sean Astin on how he’s fighting for humanity against an onslaught of AI actors
https://www.techradar.com/ai-platforms-assistants/this-is-an-unbelievable-moment-in-the-course-of-human-history-sean-astin-on-how-hes-fighting-for-humanity-against-an-onslaught-of-ai-actors

https://redd.it/1qisu65
@vfxbackup

How to optimize performance of AM5(7950x) with 4 sticks of RAM(448GB=192GB RAM) for Houdini Work?

Hi everyone,

I’m curious as to how to optimize my system performance.

The Specs:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X

RAM: 192GB (4 x 48GB) DDR5

GPU: NVIDIA RTX 5070 Ti OC (16GB)

Mobo: ASRock B850M Pro RS WIFI

Case: Small form factor (Mechanic Master C26). CPU and GPU temps stable even on 90-100% usage at 85 degrees and 75 degrees respectively.

The Problem: I recently had a major scare. After a problematic windows update, during a standard simulation/render, the system suffered a "hard crash"—no BSOD, no error codes, no frozen screen. The PC just clicked off instantly like the power was cut and I had to manually boot it back up. This happened multiple times over the course of one week even with uninstalling the Windows update. A BIOS reset finally fixed the issue. (Not sure why as I hadn't tweaked anything in BIOS)

The RAM Struggle: After the crash, I reset the BIOS. I’m currently stable with all 4 sticks, but they are running at 3600 MT/s (BIOS defaults which I had no idea before). Whenever I try to push them even to 4800 MT/s, the system fails to boot (stuck on Red/Yellow DRAM lights).

My Dilemma:

Is AM5 actually suited for 4 sticks? I’ve read conflicting reports that the memory controller on Ryzen 7000/9000 simply isn’t designed to handle 4 high-density sticks at anything resembling "fast" speeds.

Capacity vs. Speed: In my heaviest Houdini sims so far, I’ve seen my RAM usage peak around 95GB.

Should I stick with the 192GB at 3600 MT/s for the peace of mind of having the overhead?

Or should I drop to 2 sticks (96GB)? My theory is that 2 sticks would let me hit the 5200–6000 MT/s "sweet spot," which might actually speed up my "Scene Prep" and "I/O" times in Houdini more than the extra capacity helps.

Seeking Recommendations On:

Stability: Given the "hard crash" (which I suspect might be the PSU or Memory Controller being overstressed), what’s the consensus on 4 sticks with 192GB for professional work?

BIOS Tweaks: Beyond RAM speed, what settings (PBO limits, Curve Optimizer, SoC voltages) would you recommend for a 7950X in a small case to keep it from tripping the PSU but still performing well?

GPU: Any specific NVIDIA settings for the 5070 Ti OC that play nice with high-density RAM builds?

I have a deadline this week so I'm staying at 3600 MT/s for now, but I plan to experiment the moment I submit. Would love to hear from anyone else running "unsupported" RAM amounts on AM5.

https://redd.it/1qjigjk
@vfxbackup

CGI Showreel 2026 | Unreal Engine

https://redd.it/1qjsask
@vfxbackup

Ubisoft Cancels 6 Projects Including Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Remake, Closes 2 Studios and Confirms Further Layoffs in Major Company Restructure
https://www.ign.com/articles/ubisoft-cancels-6-projects-including-prince-of-persia-sands-of-time-remake-closes-2-studios-and-confirms-further-layoffs-in-major-company-restructure

https://redd.it/1qjvsrg
@vfxbackup

2026 Oscar Noms are out
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgyyqkn0yvo

https://redd.it/1qjwxyt
@vfxbackup

Ubisoft shares tumble after Assassin&Creed; creator unveils restructuring, cancels games
https://www.reuters.com/business/ubisoft-shares-tumble-after-assassins-creed-creator-unveils-restructuring-2026-01-22/

https://redd.it/1qjy627
@vfxbackup

First Time in VFX

https://redd.it/1qk0f7c
@vfxbackup

Growing Old - Pushed Myself To Improve My VFX Skills

Feature Presentation

VFX Breakdown

First Episode (Has No VFX)

I made this as part of an episodic series, what I originally had planned to do in VFX was exacerbated by my own mistakes. Have you ever shot a whole video only to realize after it was over that your main actor was staring straight down the barrel of the lens? Sigh... I did.

By not being prepared for all of the challenges I was going to face, I've taken my time over the last year and a half coming back to this and chipping away at it piece by piece. The benefit of that is now I have a better idea of how I should have approached it, unfortunately I worked myself into a corner at a certain point, wishing I had Nuke, as Resolve for VFX can be hot garbage by losing my data and sometimes crashing when I come back and try to update things like tracking.

Invisible VFX is what I wanted to improve most on, as well as VFX in service to the story. Paint-outs and morphing are the main things I worked on learning, I don't believe I nailed down anything to a professional level, but I do believe I can move forward with what I learned to do better next time. If there's one thing I know I should have done, it's add grain, I really don't have an excuse asides from being afraid to unload my rendered footage out of fear of something breaking if I did.

Let me know what you think, I appreciate you guys taking the time out of your busy schedules to take a look at my silly little shows. I hope I accomplished something you like, or at the very least something you don't hate.

https://redd.it/1qjzjw0
@vfxbackup

Useful VFX jobs resource (credit to Chris Mayne)

Chris Mayne maintains a well-known Google Sheet that tracks VFX / Animation / Games jobs worldwide and keeps it consistently updated.

I’ve built a simple UI that references that sheet and makes it easier to browse — with filtering and sorting instead of scrolling rows.

It updates live and is shared purely as a convenience for artists.

Jobs page: https://showreelbio.com/jobs

(All credit to Chris Mayne for the original jobs data)

https://redd.it/1qk58zd
@vfxbackup

Denoising Practices?

Hey everyone, had a few questions about common denoising practices. I only really work on my own projects, so I'm not concerned with other departments or anything.

On our last short, we didn't really do any denoising on our footage. I do rather like a good film emulation though, so I ended up with film grain on top of digital noise. While I got no complaints, and I saved a lot of time, I dont really want to do that going forward.

I've seen some good non destructive workflows in after effects for degraining/regraining with grain mattes. If I plan on adding film grain to all of my project, should I denoise all of my footage prior to beginning work? Is that fine to do, or should I always try to regrain my vfx comps?

My main cam is also a BMPCC 4k. Love the thing. But I was also curious if it is viable to create a noise profile for the camera itself for VFX, because I tend to shoot projects at the same ISO and light accordingly. Or do I really have to degrain each shot on a case by case basis?

I work in syntheyes, blender, after effects, and resolve. Would love some insight!

https://redd.it/1qk5p4m
@vfxbackup

James Cameron: Generative AI will only produce mediocrity in filmmaking
https://youtu.be/liob7Acq_1c?si=i-LqmdUhdsyEOv9Z

https://redd.it/1qk7llw
@vfxbackup

How incredible the quality of VFX winners/nominees has regressed over the years... Gore Verbinsky is right!
https://youtu.be/-HGUG2-67I4

https://redd.it/1qkh4i3
@vfxbackup

Small studio owners....

How many hours per week does your producer spend manually updating spreadsheets to match what's actually happening in the render folders?

https://redd.it/1qkjjbd
@vfxbackup

What's your desk setup?

Thought this might be a fun question to pick some brains across the industry. For about the past decade I've rocked identical dual monitors with a Wacom Intuos. At first it was 24" Dell Ultrasharps, then I briefly had some old HP 30" monitors that were like 2.5k. Then I arrived at my current setup, dual 27" 4k BenQ displays. I rock Nuke with my viewer on one monitor, and everything else on the other. I also switched to the large Intuos a few years ago and just span that across both displays. The aspect ratio is off but I've just gotten used to it. As a comper I mostly use it for pushing garbage mattes around and the occasional paint node in Nuke, or to give my mouse hand a break (I'm a lefty but use my mouse as a righty. Bow before me).

My displays are hooked up to both my Mac Studio—which I use for personal computing, video editing (Resolve), and Silhouette—and my PC, which has my own Nuke license, and what I use for PCoIP connections to wherever I'm working. I also game on it, which largely ends up being one monitor.

Lately I've been sorta coveting the 1-monitor life. And one of my BenQ's has been giving me some issues with flickering and refusing to accept incoming signals or bring up the menu, leading me to believe it's an issue with the board (they're out of warranty). I've been eying the LG Ultrafine 6k (32") as a bit of a simplification, both in terms of Mac use (6k at 32" or 5k at 27" are the ideal DPI for macOS scaling), and in terms of PC gaming: just having a single monitor directly in front of me.

My couple of questions would be, if anyone has experience with this... would I feel too constricted in Nuke? I figured I'd switch to the floating layout, so I could resize my viewer as needed and just pop open node controls as necessary (I actually used Nuke this way 1,000 years ago). But I keep thinking "my viewer would never be 27." I also wonder how the PCoIP setup might go. A single 6k is still more pixels to drive than two 4k's. Anyone have any experience with this? I should also note that I live in Nebraska and usually connect to studios on the west coast, so I average about a 50ms ping.

I've also pondered other setups like rocking a large Cintiq in the front with another 4k up top... I have a little 16" Cintiq and panning around a node graph on it is quite fun. But I'd always have the issue of having my viewer on the non-Cintiq and constantly needing to bring the viewer down for roto/paint, which could get annoying after a while.

I dunno. Curious if anyone has anything out of the ordinary and absolutely loves it. Nothing is particularly wrong with my setup, other than the slowly-dying BenQ. Just thinking out loud.

Desk and Cat Tax (sorry for the clutter):

Artwork by Jake Warr \(see below\)

Theo says check your grain.

Linky goodness to artwork

https://redd.it/1qkkybp
@vfxbackup

Would you be interested to convert VDB files to GLB easily ?

So let me explain. I'm a developper and recently found a way to easily convert VDB to any mesh format. Some of you probably already know how to do it but i would like to simplify the process by creating a website that will do it for you.

This website would allow you to convert your vdbs files into GLB or any other mesh format conserving the animations and allow you to have a mesh render of the VFX you just made. You will be allowed to choose the precision of the result so you could choose if you better want a low poly result or a very close to the source. You will also be able to set materials to the result.

You may have to watch an ad while the conversion is being made so i can pay the electricity bill.

I'll give an exemple of what it could look like in the comments.

https://redd.it/1qklixd
@vfxbackup

James Cameron:"Movies Without Actors, Without Artists"

https://redd.it/1qkmp9a
@vfxbackup

Which one do you expect to win?
https://redd.it/1qkph63
@vfxbackup

What's a difference between VFX and animation? You can do both?

Looking at company like Sony Pictures Imageworks, they do both VFX for live action movies and animation for animated movies. So you all technically can work not only in VFX, but in Animation as well? For me VFX looks just like, realistic animation. Is there a difference? I don't work in animation or vfx, I am just a curious guy.

https://redd.it/1qkrk45
@vfxbackup

"Obrigado" - [Audio-reactive TD patch + AE]

https://redd.it/1qktzsm
@vfxbackup

I want to move out of Vancouver, to another film hub or a city with VFX jobs. Where should I go? What was your experience?

TLDR: Senior Lighting TD, 10 years experience on big projects at big studios, looking to relocate out of Vancouver and to another vfx hub for something new. Where do I begin ?

For once it’s not for lack of work, but more for personal reasons. I want to switch it up and take a contract somewhere else for a while. My mental health has been chronically suffering for may years now. I love Vancouver and seems like we have a lot of Vfx and animation work keeping us busy lately. I am a senior Lighting artist, with experience in both vfx and animation, and doing comp as well for a few shows.

I’ve been working in this industry 10 years already, and don’t feel excited about the work we do anymore. I’ve lost all sense of purpose and passion lately and it’s showing.
I’ve worked at all the big studios (ILM Sony MPC Dneg) and have a great portfolio with very complex and versatile projects. Im very hireable and confident I could find work anywhere.
Personally and professionally I just lost my spark over the last few years, and I need to get that spark back by doing something spontaneous and different and funny enough the timing lines up to do this

- i am getting evicted in 2 months because of building renovations, loosing my beloved apartment.
- my current work contract is not going to be extended and the project is wrapping in a month ish
- to top it off, I am heartbroken and freshly single as of this year.

A series of annoying events to all happen simultaneously but the time has never been better for a fresh start. Let’s pack up and move to London, or Sydney or LA or anywhere I can get a decently paying vfx or anim job. I don’t care. I have Canadian citizenship and an expired EU passport… what’s out there? what’s my best option?

How do I start planning or prepping for something like this? I don’t have any solid contacts outside of the city. Does applying online even work? Find Job first and then move? Or move first and then find work?

What was your experience moving for a vfx job and finding vfx gigs thereafter? How is the industry in your city? What did you enjoy and what was hard?

Should I go for it? Or suck it up and keep rotating around studios here in Vancouver? Am I doomed in this industry anyways?

I’m worried I’ll completely lose myself and be miserable here forever if I don’t change something soon. Need advice.

Congrats if you made it this far reading my late night trains of thought as I attempt to get my life together. . . Any input or stories or ideas is welcome

https://redd.it/1qkq280
@vfxbackup

Looking for references

https://redd.it/1ql07pd
@vfxbackup