[HN Gopher] Unity is buying Peter Jackson's Weta Digital for $1.6B
___________________________________________________________________
Unity is buying Peter Jackson's Weta Digital for $1.6B
Author : myth_drannon
Score : 83 points
Date : 2021-11-09 21:20 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| tim-- wrote:
| Wow. Weta works on some really big films, so it will be exciting
| to see the work that they have done become available in the asset
| store.
|
| In the PR they say: > [...] the asset library we'll inherit
| [...], which includes urban and natural environments, flora and
| fauna, humans, man-made objects, materials, textures, and more.
| The WetaFX team will continue their [...] work for major film and
| TV productions and feed into this asset library for years to
| come.
|
| Peter Jackson (of LoTR fame) is one of the founders of Weta.
|
| Sad to see another one of New Zealand's large, well known
| employers get sold.
| flerp wrote:
| Link is so riddled with ads I can't even load it. Alternate link:
| https://blog.unity.com/news/welcome-weta-digital
| throwuxiytayq wrote:
| Unity is trying real hard to convince investors that it can
| compete with Unreal in the movie production space, while their
| actual capabilities are embarrassingly limited. Especially if you
| want to get shit done out-of-the-box, but also in terms of the
| max no-matter-the-budget end result quality. Hopefully they can
| catch up in the long run. The space needs competition.
| TxProgrammer wrote:
| Unity doesn't have to be an Unreal competitor -plenty of Unity
| folks in the Indie market (but I guess that's not where the
| money is) but I suppose you are right-for me, its easier to
| work with Unity than Unreal as a developer and I hope Unity can
| catch up technology wise.. not sure how acquiring WETA helps
| them in that.. its a cool Visual FX studio not a technology
| company..
| santaclaus wrote:
| > its a cool Visual FX studio not a technology company..
|
| Weta develops metric tones of tech internally, including
| employing some of the top graphics researchers at various
| points in their careers. There is tons of tech talent in VFX
| and animation shops. Hell, I work with libraries open sourced
| by Pixar as part of my day job at a FAANG.
| [deleted]
| runevault wrote:
| I think you missed a key point in the GP's comment. This HAS
| to be about competing in use for movies, not game
| development. Unreal has made huge strides in being used for
| green screen backgrounds rendered in real time and I don't
| know what else.
|
| This feels like a huge whiff to me, Unity needs to focus on
| games and just make money there. Games is a bigger market
| than movies at this point and there is plenty of room to grow
| there, especially if they can continue to make it easier for
| individuals/small groups to make a game in their spare time.
| rojoca wrote:
| In the unity announcement they go over some of the tools weta
| have created: https://blog.unity.com/news/welcome-weta-
| digital
| Keyframe wrote:
| This is a move in the right direction however, albeit a bit
| unexpected!
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| Historically visual effects companies have been some of the worst
| investments possible. They traditionally haven't had much in the
| way of revenue generation outside of the five major production
| companies that they rely on to give them work. Fifteen years ago
| spending even 10s of millions to buy one would have been
| considered extremely risky.
| tim-- wrote:
| Weta is much more than "just" a VFX company. That part is still
| going to stay with Peter Jackson.
|
| What is being bought here is the technology. Similar to any big
| VFX company, there is a lot of proprietary technology
| (renderers, modelers, engines, pipelines etc) that Unity is
| purchasing here. VFX tech is worth millions. Ask Autodesk or
| Adobe.
| gridspy wrote:
| Taking Procedural Movie-quality 3D asset tools and putting them
| in the hands of small studios to lift their games closer to AAA
| production values sounds like a smart play by Unity.
|
| It's similar to unreal acquiring Quixel Megascans [1] so
| developers can just import high quality 3D meshes into their
| levels. Or Ninite [2] allowing artists to work without worrying
| about system polygon limits.
|
| Seems like both tools (Unity, Unreal) are growing even further
| beyond mere rendering or in-game engines into full game
| construction tool-sets which empower developers during the entire
| game's production.
|
| As 3D hardware grows in power, what was a "movie quality" asset
| and too complex for realtime rendering becomes a "standard AAA
| quality realtime asset." Especially as all engines bring forward
| a technology like Ninite.
|
| [1] https://respawnfirst.com/unreal-engine-5-assets-powered-
| paki...
|
| [2] https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.0/en-
| US/RenderingFeatures/Na...
| strider3g wrote:
| So they paid $5.8 million per engineer...nice.
| nyxaiur wrote:
| In the last 10 years Weta, ILM and Pixar lost their independence.
| With their big in house R&D they pushed for interoperability of
| software packages, operating systems and defined standards for
| their industries. You could say they had a common enemy - the
| deadline - and worked together to beat it. But they not only
| pushed in regards of VFX a lot of their other in house packages
| are now de facto standard like https://munki.org as a software
| package manager and so much more. Their technical studies and
| presentations may not be found at your standard tech conference
| but if you had the chance to grab some of them at FMX or SIGGRAPH
| before they got bought you know what will be missed. I am
| saddened to see that none of them could stay independent.
| hwers wrote:
| Slightly sad that their expertise won't be available to the
| movies anymore I suppose.
| kiwih wrote:
| This one shouldn't be an issue.
|
| > The WetaFX team will continue their industry-leading VFX work
| for major film and TV productions and feed into this asset
| library for years to come.
| bitwize wrote:
| Only because it takes years for the corporate sarlacc
| digestion process to complete.
|
| Remember when Facebook said Oculus would be independent for
| years to come?
| karmasimida wrote:
| Why? Isn't the point Unity buying them in the first place to
| try to get into the VFX market?
| [deleted]
| vernie wrote:
| Damn, that sucks.
| gtm1260 wrote:
| Yeah I hope the continue making films. One of the best out
| there!
| karaterobot wrote:
| > Weta Digital's 275+ engineers will join Unity. The VFX artists
| will be spun out into a new entity, "Weta FX", which Peter
| Jackson will continue to own the majority of. The two companies
| expect to continue working together, with Unity noting that it
| sees Weta FX being one of their "largest customers in the Media
| and Entertainment space" moving forward.
|
| So, Weta FX will continue doing effects for movies, and the
| _engineers_ from Weta will work for Unity, likely continuing to
| develop the tools they 've already got, as well as contributing
| to Unity proper.
| erichocean wrote:
| Weta's internal tooling is really, really good.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Heard it was a mess five years ago, what's changed?
| 41209 wrote:
| >Meanwhile, Unity will be taking over the development of Weta
| Digital's many built-in-house tools -- things like City Builder
|
| I'm so excited about this, while an array of 3rd party tools
| exist, I'd love something straight from Unity. The existing city
| builders are basically hobby projects by a single dev.
|
| That said, you can do some amazing things with them. As is Unity
| is much more accessible than Unreal, I'm beyond happy to see this
| nyxaiur wrote:
| Weta, ILM and Pixar were always some sort of beacon of innovation
| not only in visual development but also in development in general
| they usually pushed for standards and compatibility between
| different software packages, operating systems and so much more.
| Some of their open sourced tools are now standard like munki
| https://www.munki.org/. I am saddened to see that none of them
| could stay independent.
| caslon wrote:
| ILM and Pixar both started out as subsidiaries of Lucasfilm.
| None of them were meaningfully set up for actual independence
| as much to minimize risk for the companies they spawned from,
| and it kind of makes sense what happened to them. Parasitic
| companies make the most beautiful of things, but ultimately
| can't really be separated for very long.
| elil17 wrote:
| Pixar has never really been independent of Disney. ILM has
| always been a Lucasfilm subsidiary and has continued to put out
| great work even after Lucasfilm was acquired by Disney.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-11-09 23:00 UTC)