Virtual Production Workshop Presented by Pixomondo
9:40-10:40 am
Auditorium
CONFERENCE OR VIP PASS
Meet with Oscar and Emmy Award-winning VFX and Virtual Production House Pixomondo and its Virtual Production Academy to learn how VP content is made for such shows as Star Trek: Discovery, Strange New Worlds, and more.
Take a journey through one of the Unreal projects from these shows, from first mesh to final shoot. Find out how the Virtual Art Department works in hand with the DPs. Directors, other PXO departments, and the stage crew, to get a final frame in-camera.
Asad Manzoor | Head of Virtual Production Content, Pixomondo Toronto
Asad spearheads content development for Pixomondo’s Virtual Production stage squeezing feature-quality imagery out of Unreal Engine. Asad has worked on such titles as Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Star Trek: Discovery, and Halo. He co-developed Pixomondo’s Virtual Production division, with a sprinkle of game development on occasion.
On the set of the Paramount+ original series STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS. Photo Cr: Marni Grossman/Paramount+
Zachary Dembinsky | VAD/CG Supervisor, Pixomondo Toronto
Zachary Dembinski brings a decades worth of VFX experience to Pixomondo’s exciting endeavour 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.
Mujia Liao | Head of Virtual Art Department and Art Director, Pixomondo Toronto
Mujia Liao is Pixomondo Toronto’s Head of Virtual Art Department and Art Director, bringing many of PXO’s Virtual Production environments to life for the Volume stage. She collaborates with the Unreal team to shape PXO’s virtual production environment pipeline and PXO’s environment pipeline as a whole.
With a focus on sci-fi projects and high-profile film franchises, Mujia has worked on such shows as The Mandalorian, Star Trek: Discovery and Westworld, as well as prestigious studio IP titles including Wonder Woman, Power Rangers, The Hunger Games and The Fast and the Furious.
On Mandalorian, Mujia headed up PXO’s Art Department. She led the team to help ILM realize the look of various environments and creatures, including the desert planet Arvalla 7’s daytime and sunset looks, and reptiles such as the thick-skinned Dewbacks and the flying Repatvians. She personally took on the realization of the iconic Blurrgs.
Mujia has been working on Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Short Treks and the upcoming spinoff Star Trek: Strange New Worlds since their inaugural seasons. She is one of the core PXO pioneers who helped the franchise transition to virtual production on PXO’s Toronto Volume stage. Mujia and her team worked alongside PXO’s Unreal crew to establish the workflow for creating environments used in the virtual production on both Discovery Season Four and Strange New World’s upcoming launch, delivering more than 20 environments between both shows since last year.
