Inside Blue Zoo's R&D: Building a Digital-First Toolkit in Blender

Join Blue Zoo for a look inside ZooKit, our powerful toolkit for Blender. We're building a workflow where a single artist or small team can take an idea from design to final render. This talk explores how we use Geometry Nodes and Rigify for character creation, world-building, and look development. We'll share our R&D process, from a universal character creator to procedural environments, offering a practical look at the challenges and breakthroughs shaping our digital-first pipeline and empowering artists to do more with less.

Speakers

  • Dane Winn is a London-based director and animator. His background as a 3D artist has lead him to a hands-on approach to directing and filmmaking where he's passionate about discovering new and compelling ways to communicate ideas and tell stories.

    Dane's worked with brands such as Disney, LEGO, Facebook, BBC Sport, Glenfiddich and many more, producing several award-winning short films, commerc…

    Speaker Profile

  • Vasil is the Lead R&D Engineer at Blue Zoo, where he focuses on automation, improving workflows and staying on the bleeding edge of animation technology. Vasil also has 8 years previous experience in rigging for variety of Blue Zoo shows including Superworm, The Adventures of Paddington and LEGO City No Limits.

  • Joshua is a 3D generalist who has experience in animation, FX work, lighting and compositing. He is passionate for both the creative and technical side of 3D workflows, tool development, procedural workflows and environment creation.