Unity acquires Weta Digital

[cheapchips]

This surprised me, Unity have purchased Weta Digital for $1.6Bn.

https://blog.unity.com/news/welcome-weta-digital

 

[Pressure]

Peter Jackson seems to have increased his net worth by that deal, holy Batman.

 

[BRiT]

Tech Crunch article at https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/09/unity-is-buying-peter-jacksons-weta-digital-for-over-1-6b

Unity is buying Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital for over $1.6B

Unity has just announced its intent to acquire Weta Digital, the legendary visual effects company co-founded by Peter Jackson, for a massive $1.625 billion.

...

Weta Digital’s 275+ engineers will join Unity. The VFX artists will be spun out into a new entity, “Weta FX”, which Peter Jackson will continue to own the majority of. The two companies expect to continue working together, with Unity noting that it sees Weta FX being one of their “largest customers in the Media and Entertainment space” moving forward.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Wait, so Unity acquired Weta Digital with the VFX artists spun off into Weta FX which Peter Jackson will own a majority stake?

So, technically Unity bought part of Weta Digital (the engineers), while the rest will continue on as part of Weta VFX under Peter Jackson just like was the case at Weta Digital pre-"purchase".

Wouldn't it have been simpler just to spin off the engineering team and sell that to Unity?

Regards,
SB

 

[zed]

Uh what, what

I hope this is not in response to UE5 and where even though unity is better designed than unreal, if you release a tech demo that makes the punters go ahh, then ppl are impressed
In saying that unity has a lot of problems, choose a single fucking renderer for one thing

 

[orangpelupa]

maybe this will make unity have more specialized stuff for easy to use VFX? Something like unreal and its specialized childs?

Currently Unreal has a bunch of specific "childs". Like Twinmotion for super duper easy to use UX for 3D rendering, VR, and (simple) animation for architecture.

while keeping the main unreal engine look as unwieldy as ever.

 

[JPT]

Or Unity want in, in the TV/Movie CGI tools business, like Unreal has done, ref The Mandalorian etc.

 

[cheapchips]

Or Unity want in, in the TV/Movie CGI tools business, like Unreal has done, ref The Mandalorian etc.

Obviously lots of useful tools and expertise at Weta, but they only started pursuing Mandalorian style virtual production with a test earlier this year. They're a talented bunch, so maybe they'll make rapid progress or Unity will buy another vendor that specialise in LED stages.

I did spot one problem with Weta's virtual production test.

 

[JPT]

Obviously lots of useful tools and expertise at Weta, but they only started pursuing Mandalorian style virtual production with a test earlier this year. They're a talented bunch, so maybe they'll make rapid progress or Unity will buy another vendor that specialise in LED stages.

Probably quicker to get into the business with WETA than without, regardless of any additional acquires or not.

 

[jlippo]

They certainly got some sweet tools.

 

[SlmDnk]

New real-time demo, Lion: Unity Art Tools in action and the future of Wētā Digital for RT3D | Unity Blog

Experience our latest real-time demo, Lion, which brings artist tools from Wētā Digital, Ziva, SpeedTree, SyncSketch, and the Unity Editor together for the first time.

blog.unity.com