Digital destruction is Bottleship VFX's sweet spot. From fiery explosions to churning waterfalls, the Bulgarian studio excels at crafting data-heavy VFX, including particle work and fluid simulations - feats accomplished in part through Thinkbox Software tools.
Thinkbox's Deadline is the centerpiece of Bottleship's in-house renderfarm, which Co-founders Hristo Velev and Martin Naydenski chose because of its broad application support, reliability and performance, and previous experience with the software. The facility currently runs Deadline on five to 50 render nodes at any given time, and because of Deadline's reliability and decentralized architecture, they experience easy scaling as the studio grows. Bottleship also appreciates Deadline's Shotgun integration, the ease of software deployment, ability to run maintenance jobs and cloud compatibility. They've even tapped the software for thermal control; after running into cooling issues, Bottleship instructed Deadline to shut down the hottest servers when the room's ambient temperature exceeded a certain threshold, then restart once cool enough. When it comes to Deadline, we're often surprised by the Ali Baba Cave of hidden treasures it unlocks for us, noted Velev.
Given Bottleship's core line of work, Thinkbox's volumetric particle toolset, Krakatoa, plays a key role in artists' day-to-day activities. Its performance and flexibility enable hundreds of millions of particles to be iterated multiple times per day. Krakatoa is a main gun in our arsenal, shared Naydenski, It's indispensable in the creation of many effects we do daily - whitewater, energy, disintegrations, all that fun stuff - and allows us to fulfill our clients' most outlandish and demanding requests.
The studio also uses Thinkbox's Stoke to efficiently shape fields in detail for almost every project. What Krakatoa does for particles, Stoke does for fields, added Velev. If there's an effect that's easiest to approach from a field perspective, then we're able to quickly and easily design it with Stoke. We then render it and produce the 100 million particles we use as a ground rule on detailed effects, and often, we combine the custom fields, like geometry defined ones, with other sources like textures, FumeFX simulations or turbulences, to create additional detail layers.
For liquid meshing, debris and complex effects with particle geometry, Bottleship uses Thinkbox's Frost coupled with the Magma toolset in Krakatoa to maximize performance and flexibility. All big rigid body simulations need to be augmented by debris layers, said Velev. With small, abundant piles of gravel, flakes and all kinds of gunk, it makes a lot of sense to use simple geometry like cubes for simulation, partition it, and let Frost take care of assigning meshes to it. Using Magma, we can even assign more detailed shapes to particles near the camera, delete everything outside the view that we don't need rendered, and create interesting variations in size, shape and material on the fly.
To seamlessly work across creative applications such as Autodesk 3ds Max, Maya, and The Foundry's NUKE, Bottleship leverages Thinkbox's XMesh; the geometry caching tool easily integrates easily with Deadline and Cebas' thinkingParticles, preserving all data channels while producing plausible motion blur even with volumeBreaker fragmentations.
In addition to proven pipeline solutions, Thinkbox provides personalized support to assist with any complications Bottleship encounters. I'm delighted to say Thinkbox has some of the most responsive, to the point, effective support. And you don't get an anonymous beast handler on the other side, but one of the developers, explained Naydenski, There is personal touch, and true-to-goodness CG enthusiast camaraderie there. Very often our ideas are being listened to, and end up as features. Warms my heart!
With such a great array of solutions, it's quite unsurprising that Thinkbox is one of our key relationships, concluded Velev. We are thankful for everything they've enabled us to do so far and can't wait to see what's around the corner. Historically, their surprises have very often been quite good!
About Thinkbox Software
Founded by Chris Bond in 2010, Thinkbox Software develops production-proven tools for visual artists and backs each product with highly responsive support. Used across entertainment, architecture, engineering and design, Thinkbox's products include Deadline high-volume compute management software used to render, manage and process files locally and across the cloud as well as standalone point mesher Sequoia and particle renderer Krakatoa, which are used to create, visualize and modify massive datasets. For more information, visit www.thinkboxsoftware.com or follow @thinkboxsoft on Twitter.
###
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
28/11/2025
Nadia Fall attends the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Brides at the Egyptian Theatre on January 24, 2025, in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Donyale West/...
28/11/2025
It's easy to ignore those little red update available badges. But when it ...
28/11/2025
WASHINGTON Federal Communications Commission has released a tentative agenda for the December Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, December 18, 2025 ...
28/11/2025
The Professional Fighters League is looking to super-serve fans of mixed martial...
28/11/2025
Fubo has released in beta on select Roku devices a new feature that lets users display up to four simultaneous streams at once....
28/11/2025
The WNBA playoffs and Week 4 of the NFL regular season highlight the list of live sports events airing on television this weekend....
28/11/2025
The 32nd class of honorees to the B+C Hall of Fame took to the stage at New York's Ziegfeld Ballroom on September 26 for a gala induction event. Click below...
28/11/2025
We hold in our hands the very last Next Text for Next TV, the weekly back-and-fo...
28/11/2025
DirecTV said it made a deal with EchoStar to buy EchoStar's video businesses, including satellite-TV provider Dish TV and virtual MVPD Sling TV, for $1 plus...
28/11/2025
The Broadcasting+Cable Hall of Fame, the premier industry event paying tribute to the influencers, innovators and shining lights of broadcast, cable and streami...
28/11/2025
Friday 28 November 2025
Sky Sports x Slawn drop limited-edition football jersey...
28/11/2025
Rohde & Schwarz shows resilience in a challenging environment, revenue exceeds t...
28/11/2025
Unwrapped: The Toy Show Appeal - airing this Sunday on RT One and RT Player- s...
27/11/2025
LONDON Vizrt has added several AI-driven advanced features offering improved speed, intelligence and accuracy in the newest version of its media asset managemen...
27/11/2025
Prime Video has launched AI-powered video season recaps in a beta version for select English-language Prime Original series in the U.S., a move Amazon is callin...
27/11/2025
Back to All News
Netflix's Raat Akeli Hai: The Bansal Murders Marks a Grand...
27/11/2025
27 Nov 2025
GSMA brings M360 Eurasia 2026 to Samarkand in partnership with VEON...
27/11/2025
Tahar Rahim and Izuka Hoyle star in the gripping six-part Sky Original from Acad...
27/11/2025
Thursday 27 November 2025
Sky Arts Reveals the Nation's Greatest Basslines - and Queen Reign Supreme
The UK's most iconic basslines have been revealed...
27/11/2025
Back to All News
Stranger Things 5': Prepare for One Last Adventure With O...
27/11/2025
The media industry has a paradox at its core. It's an industry built on light, color and imagination, yet behind the scenes, it's powered by one of the ...
27/11/2025
Rating reflects rating progress across areas including policies, diversity & inclusion, health & safety and Net Zero leadership
Winchester, UK, 27 November 202...
27/11/2025
What are the industry standards for Retail Media? Kathryn explains that certification is based on the IAB Europe Retail Media Measurement Standards and the IAB ...
27/11/2025
World champion boxer and Irish sporting icon Katie Taylor will be in studio this...
27/11/2025
Roblox, one of the world's most popular online gaming platforms for primary ...
27/11/2025
Black Friday is leveling up. Get ready to score one of the biggest deals of the season - 50% off the first three months of a new GeForce NOW Ultimate membership...
26/11/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Prime Video EP Mike Muriano Previews Massive Black Friday Slate Fe...
26/11/2025
A cinematic snow sculpture at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. Photo by Randall Michelson...
26/11/2025
Book podcasts are booming. On Spotify, you'll find everything from celebrity book clubs to deep dives with bestselling authors. And in markets where audiobo...
26/11/2025
Mumbai, November 24, 2025: In a first-of-its-kind initiative, JioStar, in collab...
26/11/2025
LONDON Factual content producer ITN Productions has launched a new low-latency IP gallery for news bulletins....
26/11/2025
MIAMI TelevisaUnivision said it struck a new multiyear distribution agreement with YouTube TV that includes distribution of TelevisaUnivision's U.S. network...
26/11/2025
OpenDrives, Inc., a leader in software-defined data storage and data services, today announced the launch of the Atlas Corporate Creative Solution. This new Atl...
26/11/2025
Disguise, the industry-leading company powering the world's biggest live performances, is partnering with pioneering LED wall manufacturer DVS to give atten...
26/11/2025
HighField AI, the pioneer in agentic and multimodal automation for broadcast and media production, today announced the expansion of its global channel partner n...
26/11/2025
As high-stakes Premier League fixtures approach and additional premium content launches, with MONO positioning themselves to dominate Thailand's sports stre...
26/11/2025
Hosting a wide variety of events from high-intensity NHL games to complex live music concerts and major entertainment productions, Montreal's 21,000 capacit...
26/11/2025
Vizrt, the leader in live production technology revolutionizing viewer engagement and experience, releases AI-driven advances focusing on speed, intelligence, a...
26/11/2025
ITN Productions, an award-winning factual content producer, today launched a new low-latency IP gallery for news bulletins. Responsible for delivering a leading...
26/11/2025
Ikegami reports ongoing advances throughout 2025 in developing and delivering coordinated television production solutions that maximize quality, versatility and...
26/11/2025
Following the Nov. 21 blackout of NBCUniversal channels on Fubo, the two sides have traded barbs about their inability to reach a new carriage deal....
26/11/2025
LONDON As TV sports rights become increasingly important for both broadcasters and streamers, Ampere Analysis predicts global investment in the genre will surpa...
26/11/2025
LOS ANGELES Vubiquity said it has achieved the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Media & Entertainment Competency as part of the AWS Partner Network (APN). This designa...
26/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau said it has entered into a consent decree with Comcast calling for the cable company t...
26/11/2025
Berklee Named to the Hollywood Reporters Top Music Schools List The publication highlights the college's screen scoring program, industry partnerships, and ...
26/11/2025
Back to All News
Animated Series Love Through a Prism' Casts New Light on ...
26/11/2025
Back to All News
NALIP Unveils Fifth Cohort of Director Incubator
Social Impact
26 November 2025
United States
Link copied to clipboard
The National Assoc...
26/11/2025
YouView Achieves Greenly Gold Certification for SustainabilityNov 26, 2025
YouView is proud to announce a Gold Certification award from Greenly for our perform...
Digital destruction is Bottleship VFX's sweet spot. From fiery explosions to churning waterfalls, the Bulgarian studio excels at crafting data-heavy VFX, including particle work and fluid simulations - feats accomplished in part through Thinkbox Software tools.
