Autodesk Vision Series at SIGGRAPH 2026

Dave Clayton, five-time Academy and BAFTA awards-nominated Animation Supervisor at Wētā FX, will break down some of the techniques used to imbue the creatures and characters of Stranger Things Season 5 with a new level of creepy realism, including Vecna, the Demogorgons and Demodogs, and the ever-looming Mindflayer. Wētā FX contributed more than 1,100 shots across all eight episodes, for which they received 4 VES nominations.

At the core of Project Hail Mary is an unlikely friendship between an astronaut, Grace, and a faceless alien, Rocky. VFX Supervisor Bob Winter and Animation Supervisor Aulo Licinio break down how Framestore blended cutting-edge keyframe animation with physical on-set puppetry to build a tactile, believable connection between the two leads, and see if you can spot where the puppet ends and the digital animation begins.

Join Autodesk’s Animation and Research teams for an inside look at what’s next in animation at Autodesk and the tools we're building to give you more flexible workflows that support artist choice, control, and interoperability. Through demos and research previews, you'll see new AI workflows for motion generation, and new approaches to story development and planning.

Join Cinesite CTO Michele Sciolette for a fireside chat with Kamal Mistry, Senior Director of Product at Autodesk, on how one of the world’s leading animation and VFX studios are approaching AI in production. The conversation will explore where AI can remove friction from creative workflows, how teams evaluate emerging tools for real pipeline use, and what it takes to introduce new capabilities without disrupting artists’ craft, collaboration, or creative control.

Join Refuge VFX's founder Fred Ruff and Lead Look Development Artist Stephen Lauser as they break down the creature animation, environmental interaction, and final compositing behind the memorable and terrifying rad roach massacre in Fallout Season 2. Through behind-the-scenes footage and shot breakdowns, you'll see how the team transformed clumsy creatures into deadly predators while balancing artistic goals with production realities.

Join Industrial Light & Magic Animation Supervisor, Maia Kayser, for a behind-the-scenes look at the character animation of Disney’s live-action Moana. This presentation explores the technical and artistic challenges of translating the beloved animated world into a photorealistic cinematic experience – crafting digital characters and performances that are both physically grounded and emotionally expressive.

Players spend hours unlocking the next weapon skin. Now, see firsthand the hours that go into creating those prized skins for VALORANT, Riot Games’ award-winning first-person tactical hero shooter game. Senior Animator, Brendan Russert, covers the artistic decisions behind unique gun skin animations and expressive weapon motion, the gameplay and technical limitations behind these animations, practical Maya tips and tricks, and how those assets make their way into the engine.

In Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2, Rodeo FX’s animation team faced a massive challenge: make a 300-foot titan feel like a character. Kong had to emote, and move with the weight of something real, not just big. Animation Supervisor Christophe St-Pierre Paradis walks through the process behind Kong's performance in Autodesk Maya, from the motion capture sessions, to the animator-driven refinement that transformed raw mocap data into a creature performance with genuine scale.

Discover how 3D world models are poised to transform animation and visual effects by moving beyond visual generation toward systems that can understand, simulate, and reason about space and time. In this panel, Nikola Todorovic, Co-Founder of Wonder Dynamics, an Autodesk company, and Ben Mildenhall, Co-Founder of World Labs will explore why spatial intelligence and simulation matter for the next generation of creative tools. The conversation will connect long-term research ambitions with real-world production workflows.

Meet the young filmmakers behind Azimuth, a graduation short that went on to win the 24th Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Student Project, recognized for its artistry and innovation in animation. At a time when conversations around AI and humanity are everywhere, the film tells a deeply human story, asking: if technology could recreate someone you love, would it ever truly be enough? The young filmmakers will share how trust, problem-solving, and a shared love of storytelling helped them create something they never imagined possible together. 

Inside the making of Marvel Zombies, Stellar Creative Lab reveals the animation pipeline behind Marvel’s darkest animated universe yet. From eerie environments to stylized characters, discover the end-to-end production pipeline behind the #1 Disney+ series – spanning asset creation, layout, animation, lighting, lookdev, and final rendering for a fast-paced episodic workflow. The team will discuss how Autodesk’s connected creative ecosystem enabled an artist-friendly workflow built for modern animated storytelling — and how emerging AI-powered workflows may help shape the future of animation production.