Humble House

Kelly Vrooman hosted the TD awards show across the years we ran it. She is co-director and co-writer on Humble House, and she put our name forward.

The show was already in development. The Unreal artist on it had worked out that the build was more than one person could carry.

The production calls it an Artist-First process: every character, background and layout hand-crafted, with AI tools applying lighting, texture and animation over that original art.

The environments are the hand-crafted part. That is what we build.

We build the virtual sets the show lives in.

The plan at the start was for those sets to be rough - basic geometry, nothing exact, with the downstream AI pass carrying more of the load. It went the other way. We put as much hand-authored detail into the environments as the schedule allowed, so as little as possible is left to interpretation.

We were also asked to stay on and consult with the post house. We took the VFX comping, and the specific color keying the pipeline calls for - eye colors shift as shots move through it, and those get keyed back by hand.

450 shots in under five weeks, with the R&D running at the same time.

We built alongside Sam Rivera, the show’s other Unreal artist, working closest with Austin Wilson, producer and director at 10Ton, and the prompt engineering team. We developed the version-control and export pipeline for the Unreal team so the work stayed in sync and every export came out consistently.

The pilot landed and the show has a full season. The same episode is being rebuilt for it.

We took the migration onto the current engine version, built custom Unreal tools and widgets specific to this show, and set version control up for a season rather than a pilot.

For the season we are bringing in a DP to shoot the virtual sets, and rebuilding the workflow to make room for one. More human hands on the show, not fewer.