Grant Bolton and Alberto Aguado have joined the Framestore engine team as Lead Technical Director and Principal Engineer.

As game engine technology is used more than ever in the media production industries to create faster VFX workflows and virtual production toolkits, the new appointments to the team “demonstrate the creative studio’s commitment to hiring the best in the business when it comes to real-time expertise.”

Grant Bolton has an extensive technical background using engine technology on an incredibly impressive list of credits within the games industry. He’s held roles at nDreams, where he headed the engineering team developing VR titles and won a Critics Choice award for best VR game at E3, and was a systems lead at Supermassive Games where he was part of the BAFTA-winning team behind interactive horror title Until Dawn.

To work alongside Bolton, Alberto Aguado has been appointed as Principal Engineer for engine. A games industry veteran who’s worked on several AAA titles at EA and Disney, Alberto is an expert at pipeline, tools and system development for real-time projects. On top of his games experience, he’s also led research teams in real-time animation, computer vision and XR at NaturalMotion and The Foundry.

The pair’s extensive experience will be a key part of Framestore’s raft of ongoing real-time projects, including FUSE, or Framestore Unreal Shot Engine, which 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.

Commenting on his move to the creative studio, Grant said: ‘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. 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.’

Sir William Sargent, CEO, said: “Framestore prides itself on pioneering software, technology and techniques that become part of the wider creative ecosystem. 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.”

With real-time Engine and technological developments being a key driver for Framestore, the creative studio has also appointed a new technical recruitment manager. Joe Lyons joins the in-house recruitment team, bringing with him a strong background in technology recruitment, with roles at The Focus where he was responsible for hiring for technology and R&D roles for Technicolor’s VFX studios.

With a number of Engine-driven projects in production at Framestore, Joe will be tasked with continuing to bring more “best-in-business” hires to Framestore’s engine team.

Jon Creamer

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