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 ...
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...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Creative software developer Foundry today announced the latest developments on Nuke Stage. A purpose-built application for end-to-end virtual production and in-...
12/05/2026
Beyond the Hype: A Strategic Post-Hoc Analysis of NAB 2026 If NAB Show 2026 had an underlying theme, it was a quiet, industry-wide pivot from the high-energy sp...
12/05/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D), a Panoptec Technologies Group company, and CT Square, led by Chandresh Shah, have announced a joint venture to distribute G&D and V...
12/05/2026
With 30 days until the start of the FIFA World Cup 2026, Telemundo, the exclusive Spanish-language home of the tournament in the United States, has announced th...
12/05/2026
The NHL has announced the return of Stanley Pup for its third consecutive year, a 90-minute special featuring adoptable rescue dogs competing on a miniature rin...
12/05/2026
NBCUniversal presented its 2026 Upfront to advertisers at Radio City Music Hall, detailing upcoming programming across NBC, Peacock, Bravo, and Versant properti...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced funding for the Fandom and Social Connection Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Publ...
12/05/2026
TNDV and Live Media, both divisions of Live Media Group, supported live broadcast coverage around NCAA Final Four weekend in Indianapolis, including the March M...
12/05/2026
The European Football Alliance (EFA) has announced a content distribution agreement with Fubo Sports Network, the free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channel ...
12/05/2026
For the first time, Spanish-speaking fans in the U.S. will have two separate tel...
12/05/2026
CP Communications led a comprehensive spectrum management initiative on behalf of Churchill Downs during Kentucky Derby week, coordinating RF assets across the ...
12/05/2026
LiveU has announced a strategic partnership with DRONERESPONDERS, a 501(c)3 non-...
12/05/2026
Open Broadcast Systems has announced that BMC TV, a specialist in IP transport of broadcast content, has selected the Open Broadcast Systems 5G Flyaway solution...
12/05/2026
NEP Europe, part of NEP Group, has announced it will deliver broadcast solutions...
12/05/2026
Grass Valley has announced continued collaboration with Ravensbourne University ...
12/05/2026
Stats Perform has announced the launch of Opta Pulse, an AI-assisted video creation and distribution platform for leagues, rights holders, and broadcasters. The...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced a collaboration with Sesame Workshop to integrate Sesame Street characters into FOX Sports' FIFA World Cup 2026 programming. Conten...
12/05/2026
To date, NHL Productions has produced 19 broadcasts with commentary in American Sign Language
NHL in ASL (American Sign Language) may be just one show, but the...
12/05/2026
Google's Brian Albert: creators, athletes, highlights, nostalgia, second-scr...
12/05/2026
A still from Past Lives by Celine Song, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. (Courtesy of Sundance Institute | p...
12/05/2026
Spotify is where fans and artists come together, turning discovery into somethin...
12/05/2026
Features patented Marco-MMC clocking technology
Black Lion Audio's latest release combines the company's expertise in clocking with their renowned p...
12/05/2026
New Track Panel, sequencer upgrades & more
Following their recent public beta release, Reason Studios have announced the full release of Reason 14. With the...
12/05/2026
One month to go! SBS reveals expansive FIFA World Cup 2026 lineup beyond the pi...
12/05/2026
Rohde & Schwarz presents its advanced solutions for power electronics testing at...
12/05/2026
aconnic AG (ISIN: DE000A0LBKW6), Munich, has developed a modified fund raising p...
12/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/05/2026
Tyrell Corporation, specialists in high-end live sports and entertainment broadcasts, was tasked with delivering compelling broadcast coverage of premier equest...
12/05/2026
Registration is now open for IBC2026 as the global media, entertainment and technology community prepares to converge on the RAI Amsterdam from 11 14 September ...
12/05/2026
Ross Video, a global leader in live video production technology, will present its latest innovations and integrated production workflows at BroadcastAsia 2026, ...
12/05/2026
500 selected leaders from around the world across start-ups, corporates, and venture capital. Over 50bn in assets under management among attending investors, a...
12/05/2026
CVP, one of Europe's leading suppliers of professional video and broadcast solutions, has appointed Randy Koeman as Sales Manager, Netherlands, marking anot...
12/05/2026
Taiwan Television has expanded its HD content ingest workflow capabilities by investing in the PlayBox Neo Suite - a leading multi-channel multi-server UHD/HD/S...
12/05/2026
Jigsaw24 is strengthening its media team with the appointment of Tom Laker as Client Director and Ashish Chauhan as Project Manager. These strategic hires bring...
12/05/2026
Broadcast playout leader showcases hybrid IP infrastructure and workflow automation with Videoland deployment as regional benchmark...
12/05/2026
dzjinius, the all-in-one production management platform for the media and entertainment industry, will showcase its centralised approach to production workflows...
12/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
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
