AGBO’s creative team reveals the secrets behind their revolutionary real-time animation workflow for Netflix’s Love, Death + Robots. Learn how they leverage Unreal Engine, path tracing, and virtual production techniques for stunning cinematic results.
For creative professionals looking to push the boundaries of animation, few resources are as valuable as a deep dive into the production pipelines of top studios. In a recent presentation hosted by Gnomon—the highly respected school dedicated to educating digital artists—the creative team from AGBO, the studio founded by Joe and Anthony Russo, pulled back the curtain on their highly unconventional production workflow.
AGBO’s methodology represents a significant departure from traditional Digital Content Creation (DCC) pipelines. The core innovation is velocity: by staying in-engine for nearly every step, the team drastically reduces the typical time sink associated with exporting and importing assets between various software packages. This speed enables directors to offer immediate, actionable feedback directly in the editor, accelerating the entire editorial process and making the workflow highly iterative.
Real-Time Pre-Visualization and Mocap Integration
AGBO’s production flow begins conventionally with Concept Art, but quickly transitions into a rapid “white boxing” phase. This involves assembling rough, texture-less environments and characters rapidly to prepare for the motion capture (mocap) stage.
During the mocap shoot, the team utilizes virtual production techniques where virtual cameras are actively wielded by performers. This approach allows the creative leads to scout locations, block scenes, and confirm spatial relationships and scale in real-time. This early visualization, built from rough storyboards, ensures the crew is thoroughly prepared, allowing them to focus simultaneously on composition and performance capture. Post-shoot, editing and critical camera adjustments happen instantly within Unreal’s Sequencer, further streamlining the creative iteration process.
Mastering Look Development and Path Tracing
One of the most technically challenging aspects of the project, according to Senior Visualization Supervisor Scott Meadows, involved rendering a main character: a large, furry Persian cat. This asset pushed the team into extensive research on Unreal’s complex hair systems and console variables, ultimately leading them to use Path Tracing for the final output, despite the feature being relatively unstable at the time.
Rain Rouhani, focusing on look development, emphasized that texturing needs to be narratively driven. Details like subtle tuna patterns added to a character’s shoe helped subtly tie him to the narrative. She stressed the importance of storytelling through textures, balancing material properties (like grease on polyester versus cotton) and strategically conserving render time—such as making jersey holes appear dark underneath the texture instead of calculating geometric opacity.
Natalie Villarreal, the lighting specialist, praised the speed of real-time lighting iteration in Unreal. However, the final path tracing pass introduced challenges, especially when dealing with highly glossy surfaces. To manage unwanted environmental reflections on the cat’s highly reflective eyes, Natalie’s team crafted a simple, fake “ping light” controlled via the shader, replacing distracting environmental noise with a clean, manageable highlight. She offered a crucial tip for aspiring lighters: minimize your light count. Experienced artists achieve superior results using fewer lights, leading to improved render times and greater scene clarity.
The Collaborative Future of Cinematic Animation
The AGBO team collectively underscored a vital lesson: every single department contributes to the final storytelling, whether through texture nuance or dramatic lighting choices. Working on the bleeding edge of software like Unreal Engine, which has a powerful, free basic license for creators and small studios, demands a highly technical and collaborative mindset from all artists. They advised new entrants to the industry to embrace a non-ego-driven attitude, adhere strictly to established pipelines and naming conventions, and practice strong listening skills, recognizing that in a cutting-edge studio, everyone is solving unprecedented technical problems together. To learn more about Gnomon’s educational offerings, which often host industry events highlighting groundbreaking workflows, you can visit their official site www.gnomon.edu.
If you are interested in exploring the powerful capabilities of Unreal Engine for your own projects, discover more tips and insights related to VFX & Simulation and Characters & Animation on CGEcho.net. We also have extensive coverage on Virtual Production methodologies.
