Unity to make Weta Tools available to wider VFX industry

Unity has launched a Weta Tools division that aims to provide 2D and 3D VFX solutions for the wider industry.

Unity acquired Weta Digital in 2021, and Ziva Dynamics in 2022, and will now make their tools available to the whole VFX industry, rather than only high-end VFX houses, under the Weta Tools division. 

The news will be officially announced at Siggraph this month, and the tools include Ziva’s digital human and stylized creature tech - which have already been used on netflix’s The Sea Beast. There are also collaborative tools like SyncSketch - that facilitates collaboration and provides real-time and async feedback, and Weta’s Deep Compositing and Eddy for post-production workflows - which have already been trialled on films such as Avatar, Wakanda Forever and She-Hulk. 

Vegetation creators SpeedTree 9.5 and SpeedTree 10, and an asset library will be added from September. 

Allan Poore, SVP of Unity Weta Tools, said: “Unity is investing significantly in research and development, supporting ongoing innovation, and driving the future of content creation. We are excited to showcase the work we are doing with high-end 3D artist tools, and we are looking to bring new innovations to help creators be successful, unleashing the creativity for 3D artists.”

Joe Letteri, Weta FX senior VFX supervisor, added: “Our focus has always been on helping filmmakers and part of that process is extending what is possible in visual effects. Deep compositing, Wig, and the integrated solver framework for Loki are all examples of how we took our experience with some of the largest and most complex projects and embedded the knowledge we acquired into the tools themselves.”

Natalya Tatarchuk, VP of Unity Weta Tools, commented: “We’re excited to showcase groundbreaking work in the realms of character creation, environment building, rendering, and compositing. We’re working hard to make these powerful solutions available to everybody to accelerate creative workflows, enabling seamless implementation of creative changes, and deliver blockbuster-quality final shots.”