Major videogame creator Ubisoft adds to its luster with the acquisition of vfx studio Hybride Technologies with the intent on raising the bar for vfx in games and the big screen. Unless noted, all images courtesy of Ubisoft.

Last July, Ubisoft, the third largest videogame creator, surprised the industry with its acquisition of visual effects studio Hybride Technologies, boldly stating that this convergence was going to raise the bar for vfx in games and better enable Ubisoft to adapt its intellectual properties for the big screen.

"The future of our industry depends on our ability to create brands that captivate audiences and to extend those brands to other forms of entertainment," said Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot in the original press announcement."The acquisition of Hybride falls directly into the strategy that has already led us to open a digital creation studio in Montreal and to acquire the Tom Clancy brand for videogames and ancillary products. The exceptional quality of the team at Hybride and the expertise of our Ubisoft teams will allow us to create one of the best 3D animation studios in the entertainment industry."

VFXWorld recently had a chance to follow-up with Ubisoft (Assassin's Creed) and Hybride (Dragonball, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 300, Sin City) about their future roadmap. Although it' still too soon to get into specifics, Yannis Mallat, CEO of Ubisoft Montreal, and Pierre Raymond, founder and CEO of Montreal-based Hybride, elaborated on their joint strategy.

"It is not [just] an opportunity," Mallat emphasized."The Hybride deal is part of a global strategy that we started years ago. In 2007, we opened a CG studio in Montreal, which was our first major milestone. We decided to acquire Hybride with an understanding [about pushing convergence], which was our second major milestone."

"We've been working on parallel roads and directions for some time," added Raymond. "We use the same tools and talents to share techniques but are now embarking on more problem solving."

Assassin's Creed was a recent Ubisoft release.

For Ubisoft, the acquisition comes down to one simple fact: The GPU and CPU are merging for faster and more efficient rendering potential. "We will be able to reveal [superior] image quality in the pre-rendered world," Mallat continued. "First, to make better games, but also because the industry is moving toward a different world [in terms of] generating assets and the creation of realtime movies."

Raymond offered that the particle animation and vfx from Ubisoft is already helping Hybride. "It's been amazing to see the environments generated by Ubisoft for realtime. Their tools and human expertise are already being used by us at Hybride. There is a real sharing of resources going on."

For its part, Hybride has a thriving pipeline that is very conducive for a director's creative vision, hence the visually rich work for Zack Snyder and Robert Rodriguez. In addition, the R&D department is equipped for "beta testing and validation of the very latest visual effects, 3D animation and editing products by Autodesk and Softimage… In addition, Hybride's R&D group develops its own post-production automation tools," some of which are custom-designed while others "are developed to facilitate common, repetitive tasks… "