Tempest Digital, Inc.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the 23rd Annual VES Awards – live at the Beverly Hilton hotel and online around world. We are so proud to host our global celebration of outstanding visual effects artistry and innovation. Awards were bestowed in 25 categories celebrating visual effects in film, animation, television, commercials, video games, and special venues. Congratulations to all of our nominees and winners for your exceptional work! Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes took home the top photoreal feature award, while Dune: Part Two led in photoreal feature wins with four awards. The Wild Robot was named top animated film, also earning four awards. Shōgun and The Penguin each claimed three awards in the episodic field. Coca-Cola: The Heroes won in the commercial category. The full awards rundown: https://lnkd.in/ecVuM_xd Congratulation to our special honorees -- Keanu Reeves presented the VES Award for Creative Excellence to Hiroyuki Sanada; Eyeline Studios Chief Research Officer Paul Debevec, VES, presented Dr. Jacquelyn (Jacki) Morie with the Georges Méliès Award; and filmmaker Michael Dougherty presented Takashi Yamazaki with the VES Visionary Award. Thank you to the Sklar Brothers – our dynamic comedy duo hosts – and to all of our fantastic award presenters. Thank you to our incredible VES Awards Committee, VES leadership, hardworking staff, production/event/PR/talent team and volunteers! We are still basking in the afterglow. Full photo album to come soon, VFXers!

SQL IS DEAD!! Uber just unveiled QueryGPT, an AI tool that translates natural language into SQL queries. ASK QueryGPT "How many trips were completed by Teslas in Seattle yesterday?" and getting the exact SQL query in seconds no manual coding required. Is this the end of SQL? For years, SQL has been a core skill for data professionals. But with AI tools like QueryGPT automating complex queries, the game is changing. So, is learning SQL still worth it? Or will AI make writing queries obsolete? Here's my take: 1/ 𝗦𝗤𝗟 𝗶𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗶𝘁’𝘀 𝗲𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴. AI tools can speed up query writing, but understanding data structures, optimization, and debugging still require human expertise. 2/ 𝗔𝗜 𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗰𝗼-𝗽𝗶𝗹𝗼𝘁, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁. Just like calculators didn’t kill math, AI won’t kill SQL but it will redefine how we interact with data. 3/ 𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗔𝗜-𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗦𝗤𝗟 𝘁𝗼𝗼𝗹𝘀. Instead of memorizing syntax, the real skill will be knowing how to prompt AI effectively and validate results. Original image credit: David Rolfe

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the 23rd Annual VES Awards – live at the Beverly Hilton hotel and online around world. We are so proud to host our global celebration of outstanding visual effects artistry and innovation. Awards were bestowed in 25 categories celebrating visual effects in film, animation, television, commercials, video games, and special venues. Congratulations to all of our nominees and winners for your exceptional work! Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes took home the top photoreal feature award, while Dune: Part Two led in photoreal feature wins with four awards. The Wild Robot was named top animated film, also earning four awards. Shōgun and The Penguin each claimed three awards in the episodic field. Coca-Cola: The Heroes won in the commercial category. The full awards rundown: https://lnkd.in/ecVuM_xd Congratulation to our special honorees -- Keanu Reeves presented the VES Award for Creative Excellence to Hiroyuki Sanada; Eyeline Studios Chief Research Officer Paul Debevec, VES, presented Dr. Jacquelyn (Jacki) Morie with the Georges Méliès Award; and filmmaker Michael Dougherty presented Takashi Yamazaki with the VES Visionary Award. Thank you to the Sklar Brothers – our dynamic comedy duo hosts – and to all of our fantastic award presenters. Thank you to our incredible VES Awards Committee, VES leadership, hardworking staff, production/event/PR/talent team and volunteers! We are still basking in the afterglow. Full photo album to come soon, VFXers!

Behind the #VFX scenes on that disturbingly funny #MountainDew commercial featuring a/The Seal. 😉 The commercial was directed by Taika Waititi, who did the last two "Thor" movies for the #MCU. He also co-directed the original film, "What We Do In The Shadows," upon which the hit #Hulu series is based. VFX by #UntoldStudios: https://lnkd.in/gWWBiMza See the full ad here: https://lnkd.in/gSJsnfEi

What if AI could generate both images and videos seamlessly—without the usual temporal and hallucinatory inconsistencies? #Goku, from #ByteDance (makers of #TikTok), is a new model that can generate both images and videos within the same system—meaning it doesn’t just create a single frame; it understands motion, continuity, and storytelling. For anyone in #media, #entertainment, #gaming, or #marketing, and general #storytelling, this means higher-quality synthetic visuals that look more natural and stay consistent across frames. What makes it different? Goku leverages a refined data pipeline and an innovative model design to improve both still and moving visuals. Unlike older models that struggle with coherence—where a character’s face warps between frames or lighting shifts unnaturally—Goku maintains a unified look, making AI-generated video far more reliable for professional use. Rather than attempt to get it right in a “jackpot” manner with latent noise, Goku uses a “flow-based” approach to transformers, which improves the quality and speed. At the present VBench testing framework, it’s delivering an 84.85, having inch out (just barely) past the #opensource #HuanyuanVideo at 83.24. For a Big Tech comparison, OpenSora is at 79.23, RunwayML is at 82.32, Pika is at 80.69, etc. You can check the full suite of comparisons here: https://lnkd.in/gwciXzc7 Key benefits for creators and businesses: * Consistency across images and videos – No more frame-by-frame discrepancies; the same aesthetic flows through entire sequences. *Industry-leading benchmarks – Goku sets new performance records in text-to-video and text-to-image tasks, meaning better alignment between creative intent and output. Examples are towards the end of the video below, where I included all the ones provided by Bytedance (horizontal, vertical, and ones with lip-sync). *Scalability for high-quality production – Designed for large-scale deployment, it supports demanding workflows in film, advertising, and gaming. For media professionals, this is a step toward AI-generated content that feels less synthetic and more intentional—whether it’s for previsualization, interactive marketing, or AI-assisted filmmaking. Now, the question is, with all of these, and other, amazing presentations for video, when, if ever, will Bytedance make them available for #creative, #agencies, #enterprise, etc.? No one knows, because as I have critiqued, they show amazing stuff, but they never release their code for review. We must take all this with a pinch of salt. At the same time, I must presume that this is being used in other places, but we might not be directly aware of it.

I've been discussing for years how world-skinning will not only become a job unto itself, it will be an entirely new revenue stream for major IP holders. In addition, the work to be done will become an extension of the multimodal means of extracting information from users, as well as triggers for #marketing and #advertising. I know companies such as #Meta have been vocal about *not* wanting something like the short film "Hyperreal", to become our reality. At the same time, despite what their intentions may be, it's still up to the open markets to determine how the product ends up being used. The irony might be that they have little control over the matter, except where it intrusiveness overrides the user and their ability to interact with the surrounding environment safely. This example is created by Ian Curtis from Niantic, Inc., a spin-off from #GoogleMaps and games. It shouldn't surprise anyone how #search along with #geolocation and the latest #AndroidXR / #AndroidOS from #Google + #HTCVIVE comes together in such an arrangement. You can bet everyone else in the ad space, marketing, #ecommerce, #retail, #brands, and the like, are preparing for this new gold rush. Everyone from #Apple to #Amazon, #Disney to #Netflix, #Nike to #LVMH, and beyond. Any spaces are game (no pun intended), because we don't all have to see the same worlds, even if we're only standing a few feet apart from one another. _ #xr #mixedreality #worldskinning

#Meta's Relightable Full-body Gaussian CoDec #Avatars are getting scary good. I can't wait for their release on the platform and new devices. There are going to be so many amazing opportunities for new companies once these are available, coupled with Cognitive + Affective AI. RFGCA creates realistic 3D avatars using photos taken from multiple angles under different lighting conditions (a "light stage", which is a #VFX research and breakthrough based on development by #PaulDebevec). These avatars look natural under various lighting setups, whether from a single light source or a full environment (for example, a 3D light, or an #HDRI for #IBL). The model also captures fine details like faces and hands, making the avatars more lifelike. I imagine Physical-based Lighting (#PBL) is inevitable for even greater realism, with AI-assisted and accelerated #pathtracing, such as what #NVIDIA recently showcased, #DiffusionRenderer, which I covered in an earlier post, here: https://lnkd.in/gH3PSwd5 Prject Page: https://lnkd.in/gJPXxsgt Research: https://lnkd.in/gwXiHhuF

#JurassicWorldRebirth, Beware the Monstruous Mutants! In the original books by Michael Crichton (RIP), he was very clear that there were several islands. It was on those additional islands where some were grown before transplantation to the park, and others which were screw-ups that were isolated, but kept alive for research purposes. In this film, the McGuffin is to go around collecting DNA samples from the living creatures to help create breakthrough medical treatments. Which, as sequel fodder goes, not the worst idea. At one time, there was a script with super-intelligent raptors having guns and used as weapons of war (I am not kidding), so, stranger scripts have been tossed around, OK? "The Lost World's" (the second book) second island was one, and the first book ended with the creatures making it to the mainland. While this may feel like a money grab, it is part of canon-ish. Of course, now we can have a little more fun with the monstrous freaks freed from the lab. I would like to hope that there would be a hard "R" version, because, at this point, the tired franchise's original audience has grown up and they can handle it. It gives a reason to go see the start of a third trilogy. There's six other films that kids can enjoy until then. I doubt an "R" would make it to cinemas for fiscal considerations, but perhaps for rental, sales, and later licensing on streaming, the option would be nice. ::Hint, hint:: studio executives.:: No word if the treacherous Dr. Wu (B.D. Wong) makes an appearance. I want a villain's lair inside a volcano and will accept nothing less. This sequel was written by the original film's screenwriter, David Koepp (one of the top ten highest grossing screenwriters of all time). Dr. Crichton still gets credit for the other half, despite his passing in 2008. _ #vfx #animation