Nearly two years after being acquired by Unity, VFX company Wētā has established a new department focused on 2D and 3D art tools.
The Wētā Tools division specializes in high-end tools for creating digital characters. Character creation technology has always been an important part of animation-heavy industries, but in games, Epic Games has had a large foothold in that space with its Unreal Engine.
Since artists tend to jump from games to movies and TV or vice versa, having other similarly large-scale creation tools is more than appreciated. And Unity’s press release highlighted that Wētā’s technology has the range to be used in any design language, games included.
Its tools are also said to help streamline post-production workflows, which is said to allow for art detail in projects and cut back on “repetitive tasks.”
Wētā Tools VP Natalya Tatarchuk said the company would “make these powerful solutions available to everybody to accelerate creative workflows, enabling seamless implementation of creative changes, and deliver blockbuster-quality final shots.”
“We’re excited to showcase groundbreaking work in the realms of character creation, environment building, rendering, and compositing,” she added.
More information on Wētā Tools will be revealed later today, August 7, at its SIGGRAPH 2023 keynote.