TED-Ed series Ada fuses storytelling with eye-catching animation. The Should We Studio production team explain how they relied on V-Ray for rendering, refining the process as production progressed
By Contributor
Published: March 28, 2025 Updated: March 31, 2025
TED-Ed series Ada fuses storytelling with eye-catching animation. The Should We Studio production team explain how they relied on V-Ray for rendering, refining the process as production progressed
target=_blank title=Share on LinkedIn class=share-linkedin>
After years as a senior editorial producer at TED-Ed, where she wrote over 200 scripts, Elizabeth Cox took the leap and founded Should We Studio to create content that raises awareness of issues shaping our future. We specialise in tackling consequential topics with exuberance, explains Cox. For us, exuberance means humour, vibrant settings, and above all, a willingness to engage with the weird.
Ada, the studio's first major production, stemmed from Cox's interest in the ethics of emerging technology and the challenge of making these discussions accessible. We all have a stake in the future, she says, but the discourse around this stuff is so off-putting and exclusionary of everyone but a small set of sci-fi/tech enthusiasts with a particular aesthetic.
Eager to find a way to bring these concepts to a wider audience, Cox and her core team of 12 started work on the series. They worked on Ada with no external guidelines and complete creative freedom, creating their own big-picture guidelines for the production:
Vibe: Sci-fi for non-sci-fi fans
Subjects: topical yet timeless
Tone: conversational, humorous but thoughtful
Worlds: lush, timeless-not overtly futuristic
Uncertainty: the future depends on our choices
The team set lofty goals for Ada's look and feel, striving for a handmade feel while finding a realistic way to achieve it within their restraints. With our relatively small budget and team size and quick turnaround time, we decided pretty early on that the best way to achieve the look we wanted within our constraints was to use a 3D pipeline to achieve a handmade look, says Cox, also adding that projects like Arcane and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse inspired them due to their completely new looks achieved in 3D animation.
After deciding on a 3D approach, the Should We Studio team turned to V-Ray, among other tools, to help execute their vision.
How V-Ray helped shape the look of Ada Because each episode of Ada contains two distinct worlds: Ada's reality, which stayed the same throughout the season, and the future she imagines, which looked different in each of the five episodes, the Should We team had to create a total of six distinct visual styles across the series.
Then, when it came to the characters, the team animated them in 3D and rendered them in a flat style to fit with the 2D painted backgrounds, which closely evoked traditional animation. The team didn't render lighting from 3D but instead created lighting using rim lights in After Effects and other 2D tricks. This simple render is very forgiving and well-suited to our production constraints but creates other problems to solve, Cox explains.
The team needed to render a stroke pass for the characters so their internal features, like noses and the distinction between jaw and neck, would not disappear in the flat render. Moreover, the team wanted the stroke pass to be variable, with some strokes appearing and disappearing depending on the characters' movement. It was here that V-Ray was able to render the stroke pass, giving the team the look they needed.
Wing Luo, Should We's technical director, spent time experimenting with how to land the right look for the series, ultimately deciding on V-Ray. With our small team and tight timeline, we needed to minimise manual corrections, Cox says. So being able to refine our process in V-Ray was essential.
With each episode, the team refined their workflow, mastering V-Ray to meet their vision. By the end of the series, the team's approach had evolved so much that they made the bold decision to go back and re-render the stroke pass on the first two episodes, ensuring consistency across the entire series.
This wasn't just a technical improvement-it was a testament to how much the team had grown in their mastery of V-Ray. What began as an experiment in achieving a handcrafted 3D look had become a fine-tuned process that ultimately elevated the series as a whole.
A unique series that resonated with audiences With the series completed with the help of V-Ray, Cox, and Should We Studio began finding the right distributor for Ada.
Though Cox had worked at TED, Ada wasn't made for TED-Ed-but after exploring distributors, she found it was the perfect home. One thing that really appealed to me about hosting Ada on TED's channels is that the content isn't paywalled, she explains. An experience that is free to the viewer is very much in keeping with the mission of Should We Studio and the series.
TED released Ada one episode per week over five weeks, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Viewers praised the show's engaging style, thoughtful exploration of interesting, complex topics, and distinctive animation. Many even called for more episodes, eager to see the show's world expand into a longer format.
For Cox, this reaction reaffirmed the studio's approach to storytelling. I hope people will take away the following message from Ada: We should invest in the social structures to support transformative technologies in parallel and in proportion to our investment in the technologies themselves, she says. And I hope Ada models the value of an exuberant spirit of inquiry-a willingness to engage with weird or off-putting questions and reach surprising conclusion
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
03/07/2026
New bundle & three Single Packs
Continuing to expand their already sizeable orchestral collection, VSL's latest release introduces three new Single Pack...
03/07/2026
Venue installs new ATC-equipped control room
LSO St Luke's, a unique music venue that also serves as the home of the London Symphony Orchestra, have rec...
03/07/2026
Caden Pearson appointed new Commissioning Editor for NITV
3 July, 2026
Media releases
National Indigenous Television (NITV) has strengthened its commitment...
03/07/2026
1 February 2023
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 1st February 2023: Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software technology for digit...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Death Star
Andy Marken July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Look, I can't get involved. I've got work to do. It's not that I like the Empire; I hate i...
03/07/2026
Berklee's New Visual Identity: Honoring Our History, Building for What's...
03/07/2026
Scripps Research scientists awarded $2M to advance global disease surveillance Two Gates Foundation grants will expand wastewater surveillance and AI-driven dis...
03/07/2026
Joan Pulupa joins Scripps Research faculty to study the organization of DNA in brain cells and its links to neurodegeneration Using smell-sensing neurons and ad...
02/07/2026
Entering her senior year, this hometown girl is paving a career in live sports production gaining experience in replay and audio and as a TD
In the live-sports...
02/07/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
02/07/2026
BLAST, a competitive entertainment company focused on esports, has announced more than $133 million in revenue for 2025, representing more than 40% year-over-ye...
02/07/2026
Riedel Communications has announced official SKAARHOJ panel support for SimplyLive production workflows, enabled through the SimplyLive 2.1 release. The integra...
02/07/2026
The Fire Rescue Service of the Czech Republic has deployed LiveU video-over-bond...
02/07/2026
Gravity Media USA has announced the appointment of Brittney Boston as Head of Business Development, effective July 1, 2026. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, Bosto...
02/07/2026
TwelveLabs, a video intelligence company, has announced $100 million in Series B funding co-led by NEA and NAVER Ventures, with participation from Amazon, Radic...
02/07/2026
The Pro Padel League (PPL) has announced a broadcast partnership with USA Sports that will air five PPL championship matches on CNBC during the 2026 season, the...
02/07/2026
LiveLike, a digital fan engagement platform, has announced eight confirmed FIFA ...
02/07/2026
Cobalt Digital has received Future's Best of Show Award, presented by AV Technology at InfoComm 2026, for its blueCORE family of standalone signal processor...
02/07/2026
Synamedia has announced the appointment of Dr. Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transition...
02/07/2026
The Esports Foundation (EF) and Sony Group Corporation have announced an expanded collaboration for the Esports World Cup 2026 (EWC), taking place in Paris, Fra...
02/07/2026
Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. ( Z') has announced exclusive broadcast and digital rights for the Bundesliga in India for five years, beginning with the...
02/07/2026
An effort uniting News, Sports, Local, and Telemundo, the 50+-camera live produc...
02/07/2026
Zoey Deutch, John Slattery, Ken Marino, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, and Ben Wang appe...
02/07/2026
Stammering, stuttering, strangulated tones
The Crow Hill Company's latest creation promises to be the most original sound set they've produced to d...
02/07/2026
A new era in unmixing and spectral editing
The latest version of Steinberg's spectral audio-editing software has just arrived, building on the strength...
02/07/2026
Aims to simplify additive synthesis
Sine Machine is the debut launch from Melatonin, a Vienna-based developer who have spent the past six years creating wha...
02/07/2026
Products to remain fully active & supported
Following the news of Native Instruments joining the inMusic brand line-up, Academy and Emmy Award-winning visua...
02/07/2026
What you missed!
Last weekend, Saturday 27 June 2026, saw the debut of Sound On Sounds new GearExpo UK event, the largest dedicated pro-audio event to take ...
02/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/07/2026
Following the successful launch of its inaugural APAC Mentoring Programme last month, the Rise AV APAC Regional Council will bring the conversation around mento...
02/07/2026
Blackmagic PYXIS 6K Used to Shoot Director Takahisa Zeze's Cry Out
Brie Clayton July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Highly mobile camera supports tense and de...
02/07/2026
Broadcast Solutions acquires BFE, expanding its lead in European broadcast, medi...
02/07/2026
Berklee Alum and Faculty Perform at Boston Public Library's 250th Anniversar...
02/07/2026
Broadcast Solutions GmbH, a leading systems integrator and provider of innovative solutions for the broadcast media industry, is acquiring BFE Studio und Medien...
02/07/2026
Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has extended the ingest facility at leading Brazilian sports company LiveMode, work...
02/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/07/2026
Standalone processors acknowledged for the innovation and value they bring to Pro AV
Cobalt Digital, a leading designer and manufacturer of signal processing ...
02/07/2026
Synamedia announced today the appointment of Dr Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transitio...
02/07/2026
Screen Australia backs audience-led filmmaking with new insight-driven initiativ...
02/07/2026
Screen Australia refines guidelines for Narrative Content Development and Docume...
02/07/2026
Maxon Autograph: Introduction to working with Tables
Simon Ubsdell July 1, 2026
0 Comments
An overview of Autograph's ridiculously powerful tables...
02/07/2026
Boston Conservatory's Soir e Breaks Records to Fund Student Scholarships The event achieved 127 percent of its fundraising goal in an evening celebrating ...
TED-Ed series Ada fuses storytelling with eye-catching animation. The Should We Studio production team explain how they relied on V-Ray for rendering, refining the process as production progressed
