Wylie Co. Delivers Elite Hollywood Visual Effects with AMD

Wylie Co. Delivers Elite Hollywood Visual Effects with AMD

Wylie Co. amplifies render capacity with Lenovo ThinkStation workstations advanced by AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO processors

Wylie Co. is a boutique visual effects studio that specializes in Hollywood blockbusters and premium streaming content. From its Culver City headquarters, the company manages 50 elite artists across Montreal, New York, and Mexico City. This nimble team of industry veterans provides creators with a highly interactive experience, working directly alongside directors to iterate on creative ideas in real time.

The studio recently served as the lead visual effects vendor for the Apple TV+ comedy series The Studio. To deliver feature-film quality visual effects on a fast-paced episodic schedule, the team relies on Lenovo ThinkStation workstations advanced by AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO processors. These workstations provide the necessary core density and memory bandwidth to handle huge 6K texture files and complex structural simulations without the overhead of a massive infrastructure. By integrating these high-performance processors into its pipeline, Wylie Co. creates imagery that rivals the largest studios in the world.

The challenge of the "oner"

For The Studio, the creative team faced an unusual technical requirement. The showrunners intended to play out entire episodes as "oners," or long, continuous camera shots that never appear to cut. This style presented a significant challenge during post-production because every transition and set extension required rendering thousands of frames.

"They wanted the action to play out as one continuous camera move, so you are always in the moment. That was innovative and cool, but it also presented a bunch of challenges," says Josh Hatten, Creative Director at Wylie Co.

One sequence featured a massive drone shot traveling across a fictional studio lot, beginning on the ground, transitioning through a crane, and descending back to a car close-up. Wylie Co. stitched together multiple locations to create this single, continuous move.

"We had to create a lot of CG elements, including trees, parts of the building, cars on the ground,” Hatten explains. "Luckily, our computers with AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPUs are strong enough to push all that data around and keep everything interactive for the artists.”

Increasing the stakes with AMD

The creative stakes increased during a pivotal comedic sequence involving a thrown burrito that leads to the collapse of an entire filming set. This single shot required complex structural simulations and about 20 different CG digital doubles to sell the madness of the moment.

"I did all the simulations for that shot, envisioning the structure and how it was going to collapse," Hatten says. "All of that has to be realistic, falling apart in a way that the audience can believe.” AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO processors enable the team to process intensive structural and lighting simulations locally, refining the minute details that make the environment convincing.

The simulation work for The Studio also included extending the actors’ main headquarters. The team designed the upper floors of the building to look like a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired structure. "You don't want the work to be seen," explains Jacob Morris, CEO of Wylie Co. "Getting the visual effects to be completely seamless and photoreal allows the talent and the script and the story to blossom on screen.”

AMD helps Wylie amplify its render pool

As a boutique studio, Wylie Co. does not have an unlimited budget for render nodes. "We stay on top of the most modern tools and technology, leveraging that to multiply our artists' abilities," says TJ Burke, Head of 3D at Wylie Co. To maximize their resources, the team uses the high core counts of the AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO processor to process 3D data. This hardware allows artists to split their renders between the CPU and GPU simultaneously on a single workstation.

"One of the great things about AMD Threadripper CPUs is just how powerful they are," Morris says. "We assign most of the cores to the CPU render and reserve a small amount of cores for the GPU render. We essentially amplify our render pool by two because the AMD Threadripper hardware is so powerful and can accommodate it.”

This dual-rendering capability is essential for meeting the fast deadlines in modern film production. The studio needs total confidence that its hardware will perform reliably during overnight render cycles. "We are able to survive because with AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPUs, we know when we hit render that we can trust the stuff is going to come out," Morris says.

High-resolution projects like the Netflix film The Killer demand extreme efficiency. The team spent ten months developing 6K photorealistic digital doubles that required processing immense texture files and complex simulations.

"That project was all heavy renders," Morris explains. "We were swooping up workstations left and right from Lenovo that had AMD processors in them.”

Innovating through AI and machine learning with AMD

Wylie Co. has deployed machine learning since 2020, using AI-driven facial capture to convert performances into animation for the lead character in She-Hulk. Burke noted this computationally intensive approach was vital for their small team to meet a tight timeline. The studio continues to innovate by developing internal tools, such as an AI-enhanced roto matte creator.

Morris believes staying nimble requires leaning into these advancements. "The emergence of AI and machine learning require substantial resources; that is where AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO processors step in," he explains. "AMD creates hardware that is phenomenal for AI work. The only way we pull these things off is with hardware made to crush 3D renders.”

Hatten even uses AI to help write Python scripts that automate data movement between modeling and animation stages, reducing manual errors. "Anything that I can automate, I will," Hatten explains. "That way, we can focus on the creative process and deal less with data management.”

Artistry emerges in the finishing touches

The speed enabled by AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO processors and Lenovo ThinkStation workstations translates directly into higher quality. Visual Effects Supervisor Elliott Brennan says, “If you save two hours at the beginning, that is two hours you have to polish something. That’s the difference that separates good work from great work.”

This high-performance foundation enabled Wylie Co. to deliver significant shot counts for major franchises, serving as the largest vendor by shot count on both Dune and Dune: Part Two. Whether animating a Xenomorph tail for Alien: Romulus or coordinating a zero-gravity shootout, the team uses AMD technology to push the boundaries of their craft.

"To be successful in this business, you must be incredibly efficient," Morris says. "Doing the best possible work in the industry means leaning into cutting-edge hardware. For us, that means getting our hands on as many AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO processors as possible.”