Last week, Groove Jones Senior Creative Technologist Doug Hogan served as a featured panelist at the VES Germany Section’s third Megabrain event, an international gathering focused on the rapidly evolving intersection of artificial intelligence and visual effects. The session drew more than two hundred artists and industry professionals for an in-depth conversation on the future of GenVFX and its impact on production workflows.
Doug joined acclaimed VFX supervisor and filmmaker Victor Perez for a wide-ranging discussion on the current landscape of intelligent tools used in visual effects. Together, they explored the differences between deep learning, machine learning, and generative AI, and examined how each can address long-standing VFX challenges such as rotoscoping, camera tracking, and clean plating.
A major component of the session centered on Doug’s own open source experiment, the Nuke MCP project. Developed at Groove Jones and released publicly on GitHub, the tool demonstrates how AI can collaborate with artists inside Nuke. Doug walked the audience through the state of the technology and shared his perspective on where AI-driven workflows are heading. He explained that the project began when a Groove Jones artist shared a Blender MCP experiment that inspired him to build a universal bridge for Nuke using FastMCP. The goal was to explore what an AI copilot could look like inside a professional VFX tool. Hogan described it as having a senior artist sitting beside you, helping debug problems in real time, a concept he believes holds meaningful potential.
For many attendees, the most impactful part of the session was the shift in attitude within the VFX community. Doug noted that artists have spent years hesitant to share AI-based work, fearing industry pushback, but that sentiment is beginning to change. Ethical pathways for using generative models are becoming clearer and more widely supported. Doug said it was encouraging to see VES members openly discuss their experiments and express hope about how these tools could support their craft. The audience engaged with numerous questions, reflecting genuine curiosity about the role AI can play in empowering artists rather than replacing them.
When asked about the biggest opportunity generative AI brings to VFX, Doug emphasized the potential for both speed and creative freedom. He explained that generative tools offer new artists an accessible on-ramp while also reducing the repetitive tasks that often slow production. He believes the future lies in merging AI with traditional workflows to give artists more control over the final image, creating a true collaboration between human creativity and intelligent systems.
That sentiment echoed one of the event’s most discussed topics: the unpredictability of progress in AI. Hogan joked during the panel that it is almost impossible to predict what the next few weeks will look like, let alone the next few years. Still, he is optimistic about the direction the industry is heading. He described the best future for GenVFX as one where AI serves as a tool of empowerment and a maximizer, enabling artists to focus more of their time on creative problem-solving. It is the same philosophy he brings to his daily work at Groove Jones, where experimentation and rapid prototyping drive innovation across the studio.
Doug also credited FXPHD for helping bring the Nuke MCP project to a global audience. After sharing his early results with their editorial team, FXPHD invited him to write a case study and produce a course that explains how the tool was built so others could build on top of it. The response has been strong, with thousands of views and expert contributions to the GitHub repository. Doug says he is excited to see how the community expands the project and what new ideas it will inspire.
As the VES Germany Section prepares to release the full recorded session, audiences around the world will have the opportunity to hear Doug’s insights firsthand and explore the potential of AI-driven workflows. Groove Jones congratulates Doug for representing the studio on the international stage and for helping lead the conversation on innovation in the VFX community.
Agon Ushaku – https://www.linkedin.com/in/agon-ushaku-5561b314/
Jonas Kluger – https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonas-kluger-b0013964/
Victor Perez – https://www.linkedin.com/in/vctrprz/