Virtual Art departments with Asad Manzoor and Zach Dembinsky - Pixomondo Ep 46
Asad Manzoor
Asad spearheads content creation for Pixomondo’s Virtual Production division, squeezing feature-quality imagery out of Unreal Engine. Recently, he has delivered such titles as Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Halo, Nightbooks, and the upcoming Avatar: The Last Airbender.
From initial pitch to today, Asad co-developed Pixomondo’s Virtual Production division, with a sprinkle of game development throughout that time. Having taken shots from R&D through the final frame, Asad had previously handled characters, lighting, environment art, all with a sprinkle of compositing — today, he uses all of the above to ensure PXO's Virtual Production team runs smoothly.
To keep things interesting when he's not managing Virtual Production, Asad finds himself jumping back into game development, concept art, and the occasional practical SFX project.
Zach Dembinsky
With a passion for creating digital worlds since Lightwave 7.5c, Zachary is devoted to the journey of trying to mimic the reality of light. You can find him looking around random corners of the world asking, “How would I achieve that in CG…”
Zachary Dembinski brings a decades worth of VFX experience to Pixomondo’s exciting endeavor of virtual production. With his background roots in traditional vfx Lighting – he ambitiously tries to push the boundaries of real-time rendering with every environment. He firmly believes real-time rendering is the future and it’s here to stay. His latest VP projects include, Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Strange New
Worlds, and Netflix’s – Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Highlights of the Episode:
0:00 Introduction
0:14 Introduction of guests
3:33 Getting into the industry
7:59 Education and biggest contributors
11:41 Zach's path into the industry
20:01 Lighting and its appeal
22:36 Balancing making your own work and working on
someone else's
29:33 What it's like to be more connected to virtual production
35:23 Difference between a VAD and the art department
39:30 How to help the VAD and the art department
function well together
44:39 Level instancing or data layers in your VAD workflow?
45:56 workflow for ingesting high poly lidar assets
49:11 Exploring Nerfs
51:06 Optimistic about AI
54:29 Collaborative working for guys in VADs
59:19 What the traditional art department need to learn to work
better with the VAD
01:02:17 Wrap up
01:02:53 Outro
“In any project, not necessarily just visual effects, any thing that a group is working on, the more interconnected that group is, the better the product you're gonna end up with by the end.” - Asad Manzoor
Connecting with the Guest:
Asad Manzoor
Website: https://www.pixomondo.com/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asadnmanzoor/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNLNAcU-wcQ
Zach Dembinsky
Website: https://www.pixomondo.com/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharydembinski/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zackdembinski/?hl=en
Connecting with CG Pro:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/becomecgpro
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/becomecgpro/
Website: https://www.becomecgpro.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BecomeCGPro
#virtualart #virtualproduction #cgpro