Grant Bolton named lead technical director and Alberto Aguado principal engineer on engine team to support studio’s growing use of game engine technology in VFX and virtual production toolsets.
Framestore has named Grant Bolton lead technical director and Alberto Aguado principal engineer on the studio’s engine team. The two recent hires will play key roles in the company’s latest innovative real-time projects. As game engine technology is increasingly used in the media production industries to create faster VFX workflows and virtual production toolkits, the new appointments demonstrate the creative studio’s commitment to hiring the best in the business when it comes to real-time expertise.
Bolton has an extensive technical background using engine technology on a large list of projects within the games industry. He has held roles at nDreams, where he headed the engineering team developing VR titles, winning a Critics Choice award for best VR game at E3. He also served as systems lead at Supermassive Games, where he was part of the BAFTA-winning team behind interactive horror title Until Dawn.
Aguado is a games industry veteran who has worked on several AAA titles at EA and Disney. He is an expert at pipeline, tools, and system development for real-time projects. In addition to his games experience, he has also led research teams in real-time animation, computer vision and XR at NaturalMotion and The Foundry.
The pair’s extensive experience will be key to Framestore’s raft of ongoing real-time projects, including the groundbreaking FUSE, or Framestore Unreal Shot Engine. This ongoing project will see the development of a new large-scale real-time VFX pipeline which will be used in the production of a film, created from concept to final pixel entirely with engine. While no stranger to real-time, the appointments will help realize the company’s ambition to further scale engine technology across every area of its business. The award-winning VR studio, which was founded in 2014, has been a key part in several seminal projects as Framestore built its immersive offering which includes mixed reality projects, theme park attractions and immersive data visualizations.
“Framestore is already full of experienced real-time developers delivering immersive experiences and I’m excited to bring my experience into the fold to support what’s being established as the future of filmmaking,” commented Bolton. “I’m looking forward to working closely with Epic and the wider real-time community where there are so many people doing great work in the same field as engine technology changes the face of media production.”
“Framestore prides itself on pioneering software, technology and techniques that become part of the wider creative ecosystem,” remarked Framestore CEO William Sargent. “We’ve been using real-time engine technology for some years, but projects like FUSE and PRESENT put us at a point where we’re not just exploring the ‘here and now’ of modern content production but also the future of everything from filmmaking to theme park rides. Expanding our team with some of the best minds in the industry is key to bringing about the ambitious technological change we envision, and we couldn’t be happier to have Grant and Alberto join us.”
To support the real-time engine and technological developments, Framestore has also appointed a new technical recruitment manager, Joe Lyons. He joins the in-house recruitment team, bringing with him a strong background in technology recruitment, including his work at The Focus, where he was responsible for technology and R&D hiring for Technicolor’s VFX studios. With a number of engine-driven projects in production at the creative studio, Lyons will be tasked with continuing to bring more best-in-business hires to Framestore's engine team.
Source: Framestore
