Announcing FUSE in THR

Rencently, Tim Webber, the Oscar-winning VFX supervisor of Gravity and chief creative officer Theo Jones at VFX announce our new project FUSE; the Framestore Unreal Shot Engine.

The film has been produced under the year-plus long project which will be done entirely using a brand new VFX pipeline driven by Epic Game’s Unreal Engine.

Tim Webber will use Framestore’s new VFX pipeline incorporating Epic’s Unreal Engine.The studio’s newly-developed VFX pipeline dubbed FUSE, an acronym for Framestore Unreal Shot Engine to demonstrate the potential of the studio’s newly-developed VFX pipeline。

Webber said the film is a scifi based on the existing IP but he declines to release any details. “It’s going to be predominantly CG generated, but it’s going to be somewhere between CG animation and a live action movie.” He adds。

FUSE, based on Epic Games’ real-time Unreal Engine, is conceived as a VFX workflow that could allow large numbers of artists to work simultaneously within the real-time engine, incorporating previsualization, virtual production, asset management and review and approvals, in addition to VFX shot production and including the ability to work remotely. “We’re aiming to produce finished [shots], feature length and episodic content, hundreds of shots and [with] hundreds of artists, potentially, ” VFX supervisor and project lead Theo Jones said.

Jones adds that the production will also incorporate virtual camera work enabling the director to work with VR headsets and an iPad. “A lot of the tools we’ll be putting in place will be for facilitating that more easily,” he says.

The capabilities of the new pipeline are being created in collaboration with Epic as well as through in-house work at Framestore. Plans include developing and stress-testing features that potentially could feed back into Epic’s Unreal Engin. Jones says he hopes this work will help to create a “more efficient way of working, not just for us, but the whole industry. This is an endeavor that’s all about being able to scale across the entire business, not just niche divisions or use cases.”

In late 2020, UK-headquartered Framestore–which in addition to features and TV develops immersive media and theme park content–completed the acquisition of Company 3 and Method.

By:CGGE