Maxon, developers of professional software solutions for editors, filmmakers, motion designers, visual effects artists and creators of all types, today announced that Cinema 4D and ZBrush were used in the production of animated virtual reality short, Ajax All Powerful. Written and directed by award-winning VR filmmaker Ethan Shaftel and co-produced by easyAction, VeeR and Detona Cultura, the film removes the barrier of the fourth wall to provide viewers with a uniquely immersive perspective in which they experience the events and emotions more acutely through the viewpoint of a protagonist.
Launched August 20th, 2023 on the Meta Store, the animated comedy follows double-crossing genie Ajax, who, in a dark twist, collects souls in exchange for granting wishes. That is until he meets his match when a little girl, who rubs his lamp, comes prepared with her very own lawyer to help negotiate.
Starring Henry Winkler (Happy Days, Barry) as the foul-mouthed Ajax and Chris Parnell (Rick and Morty, Saturday Night Live) as the no-nonsense lawyer, the story uses interactivity, movement and performance to create a perfect state of engagement in which the audience is fully focused on the story.
When you make a movie in Mixed Reality, it's really a whole world, so there is so much more animation to do, Shaftel explains. All of the characters are alive all of the time, so you have to be really brutal about where you put your production time, polish and energy. The great thing about using Cinema 4D in VR production is that you can use it in several different ways and with Maxon it is such a straightforward process to export files into VR.
Given the cutting-edge developments in the VR space over the last few years, Maxon CEO David McGavran believes VR may revolutionize filmmaking and storytelling in much the same way the addition of color and sound did in the past. VR offers artists a plethora of opportunities for content creation and filmmakers need to be extremely clever and imaginative in how they enable the viewer to interact with the film. Ethan has been honing this very craft for years and is pioneering truly unique and immersive experiences in virtual reality. Maxon is committed to providing the artistic community with necessary tools that are primed for working in this rapidly developing medium.
Cinema 4D and ZBrush were valuable tools for fast, smooth workflows throughout each step of the film's production, Shaftel says, and the integration with Unity made switching between those solutions and exporting files uncomplicated.
ZBrush, the industry standard tool for digital sculpting and painting, was primarily used for character design, and all the animation was created in Cinema 4D, Maxon's professional 3D modeling, animation, simulation and rendering software. With Cinema 4D, it was easy to plan and block out action sequences during the writing and animation process, as well as revisit and edit where necessary.
In addition to producing the previz animatics, the VR 360 video tools in Cinema 4D allowed Shaftel to render out frames of 360 video from different perspectives, which were then taken into Adobe Premiere to be edited into a VR storyboard. During the full production process, Shaftel and his collaborators brought the dialogue soundtrack into Cinema 4D to rig and animate the characters in order to match the actors' vocal performances to their characters' actions.
This film is the first time I've been able to put together all the components of my vision for how I think narrative VR can work, Shaftel says. I'm hoping that some of the techniques I'm playing with can transcend a single project and apply to other VR narratives and become part of the grammar of VR storytelling. That's the ongoing project.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
07/08/2025
July 8 2025, 22:30 (PDT) Tata Motors & Dolby Bring Dolby Atmos to Harrier.ev, R...
11/07/2025
PARK CITY, UTAH, July 11, 2025 - The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced today the 11 producers chosen for its annual Producers Labs, returning to Ucross Fou...
11/07/2025
If you've ever wondered what might be playing in Clark Kent's headphones...
11/07/2025
L3Harris Technologies President of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Jason Lambert and General Manager of L3Harris Waco facility Sean Ling held a ce...
11/07/2025
ARLINGTON, Va. WETA, the flagship public media station in the national capital area, has launched WETA+, a new streaming service tailored for the local Washingt...
11/07/2025
The Federal Communications Commission has emerged as one of the central players in the broadcast TV landscape in 2025, with its deregulatory policies sparking h...
11/07/2025
Calrec will introduce usability, customization and system enhancements across its entire range of Argo consoles during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Amsterda...
11/07/2025
LONDON Encompass Digital Media said it will support live and on-demand viewing of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup across multiple global regions for sports enterta...
11/07/2025
Two-thirds of broadcast engineers reaped the benefits of a pay raise within the last year....
11/07/2025
CARY, N.C. SmallHD has launched the Quantum 27, a new 26.5-inch Quantum-Dot OLED monitor designed to deliver postproduction image quality in a compact, set-frie...
11/07/2025
The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau and Tegna have entered into a consent decree that will settle an investigation into the accidenta...
11/07/2025
WASHINGTON Following news in early July that Paramount had settled President Donald Trump's lawsuit, Sens. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Ben Ray Luj n (D-N...
11/07/2025
Model/Actriz Performs Lead Single Cinderella on The Late Show with Stephen Colbe...
11/07/2025
Behind the Mic: Amazon Prime Preps for First Season of NBA Action; MSG Networks ...
11/07/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Suite Studios' Craig Hering on Adapting to Client...
11/07/2025
2025 SVG Content Management Forum Breaks Down AI's Impact, Continued Transit...
11/07/2025
A Journey HOME: University of Nebraska's HuskerVision Goes IP Leaders from the HuskerVision and Lawo share their IP learnings By SVG Staff
Friday, July 1...
11/07/2025
CMSI, Remote Picture Labs, Ace ESPN's Cloud-Based Editing Efforts for Wimble...
11/07/2025
Netflix Enters the Live-Boxing-Production Ring for Round 2 With Historic Taylor-...
11/07/2025
Back to All News
Too Hot to Handle: Italy Is Coming on July 18 Only on Netflix
Entertainment
11 July 2025
GlobalItaly
Link copied to clipboard
July 11, 20...
11/07/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Will Release Death Inc. Seasons 1, 2 and 3
Entertainment
11 July 2025
GlobalSpain
Link copied to clipboard
Season 1
Season 2
Se...
11/07/2025
AI and Multimedia Authenticity Standards Collaboration launches two papers to guide the future of AI integration, today at the AI for Good Global Summit
The...
11/07/2025
Ceramics - the humble mix of earth, fire and artistry - have been part of a global conversation for millennia.
From Tang Dynasty trade routes to Renaissance pa...
10/07/2025
The current holder of the prestigious Thomson Foundation Young Journalist of the Year Award has been forced to stop reporting over fears for her safety in Afgha...
10/07/2025
Spotify is turning up the volume on Australian music with a multipronged initiative designed to highlight the dominance of Australian artists on the global stag...
10/07/2025
This is not a drill: Oasis is back on the road-marking its first live performanc...
10/07/2025
The music industry depends on fresh ideas, bold voices, and emerging talent. Yet across the U.K., too many young musicians lack the space to develop their craft...
10/07/2025
NEW YORK - July 10, 2025 - Nielsen, the global leader in audience measurement, data and analytics, today announced that it appointed Richard Pacheco as head of ...
10/07/2025
Local newscasts don't exist in a vacuum. News directors and station management constantly evaluate what's working, what isn't and perhaps most impor...
10/07/2025
Lawo has announced that Stuttgart Media University (Hochschule der Medien, HdM) has comprehensively modernized its central recording studio after selecting an I...
10/07/2025
The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) has opened early-bird registration for the Media Technology Summit, which will take place in a ne...
10/07/2025
NASHVILLE, Tenn. TNDV Television has launched Aspiration 35, a new version of its 40-foot Aspiration truck reimagined for cinematic multicamera productions....
10/07/2025
BURBANK, Calif. Key Code Education, a provider of instructor-led postproduction training, is growing its curriculum with new programs for beginner and intermedi...
10/07/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. Actus Digital will demonstrate how broadcasters can transform compliance monitoring from a necessary expense into a strategic revenue driver at...
10/07/2025
The Federal Register has published a summary of the Federal Communications Commission's Public Notice seeking comments on its ownership rules that lists a d...
10/07/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Presents the Official Trailer for SuperestarPlay Video
Play Video
Entertainment
10 July 2025
GlobalSpain
Link copied to clipboard...
10/07/2025
In the race to understand our planet's changing climate, speed and accuracy are everything. But today's most widely used climate simulators often strugg...
10/07/2025
As one of the world's largest emerging markets, Indonesia is making strides toward its Golden 2045 Vision - an initiative tapping digital technologies and...
10/07/2025
10 Jul 2025
VEON and Cohen Circle Secure Investor Commitments for Kyivstar Listing Kyiv, New York, Dubai, and Philadelphia - July 10, 2025 - VEON Ltd. (Nasdaq:...
10/07/2025
5G for all? What the DFL's use of Easy5G and RefCam could mean for events in...
10/07/2025
Save the Date: PGA TOUR Studios Welcomes SVG Remote Production Summit on Oct 14-...
10/07/2025
Cloud on the Road: How Remote-Production-Service Providers Are Adapting to a New...
10/07/2025
Seattle Kraken's Ryan Schaber on the NHL Team Taking Live Game Productions I...
10/07/2025
FOX Sports Reboots Small Control Room in Los Angeles as Hub for Vertical-First P...
10/07/2025
SVG Sit-Down: MSE's Zach Leonsis, ViewLift's Rick Allen Go Deep on Joint...
10/07/2025
Thursday 10 July 2025
The Very Small Creatures
Jaime's Treetop Tales
Emerald
BooSnoo! Christmas Mashup
Pip & Posy's Spooktacular Party
The Very Sm...
10/07/2025
Thursday 10 July 2025
Brand new rewards are coming to Sky customers, with free ...
Maxon, developers of professional software solutions for editors, filmmakers, motion designers, visual effects artists and creators of all types, today announced that Cinema 4D and ZBrush were used in the production of animated virtual reality short, Ajax All Powerful. Written and directed by award-winning VR filmmaker Ethan Shaftel and co-produced by easyAction, VeeR and Detona Cultura, the film removes the barrier of the fourth wall to provide viewers with a uniquely immersive perspective in which they experience the events and emotions more acutely through the viewpoint of a protagonist. 
