Check out this weeks vfx video round up from VFX studios’ own YouTube channels. Four are shot breakdowns, two are studio reels, and one is a deep look at a single shot from Blade Runner 2049. Here is what each one covers.
Everything below was dropped between Monday, October 5 and Friday, October 9, 2026. This will hopefully be a new format, but don’t quote me on that. Our guide to what a VFX breakdown is explains the wipes and layer passes you are about to see.
House of the Dragon Season 3, by Rodeo FX
Rodeo FX posted its House of the Dragon Season 3 breakdown on Monday. The studio sums it up as battles, dragons and everything that burns in between. That fits. Season 3 is where the Dance of the Dragons turns into open war.
The season aired on HBO from June 21 to August 9, 2026, so this lands about two months after the finale. That gap is normal. Studios usually wait until a show has finished airing before they show how the shots were built.
Rodeo FX has teams in Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, Los Angeles, Paris and Bengaluru. If fire breathing cg dragons are your thing, our list of the best CGI dragons in movies covers how the genre got here.
The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 3, by Framestore
Framestore’s New York team went back to post-apocalyptic Manhattan for Dead City Season 3. VFX Supervisor Steve Drew led the work, according to the studio, and the brief was to push the destruction of NYC further than before.
The shot list is a tour of wrecked landmarks: a ruined Statue of Liberty, the George Washington Bridge, overgrown city vistas and a fully CG Empire State Building. There is CG character work too and, this being The Walking Dead, plenty of blood and gore.
Season 3 premiered on AMC and AMC+ on July 26, 2026. At 1 minute 43 seconds this is the shortest breakdown of the week, and it packs a lot in.
One Hundred Years of Solitude Part 2, by FOLKS
The good FOLKS returned to Macondo for the second half of Netflix’s adaptation of the Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel. Part 2 premiered on Netflix on August 5, 2026.
This is magical realism, so the job is making impossible things feel ordinary. The breakdown covers digital animals, flurries of yellow butterflies, fire, water and environment extensions.
Watch for the butterflies. They are one of the most famous images in the book. Getting them to feel natural, instead of like a fantasy effect dropped into a period drama, is the hard part.
Mother Mary, by beloFX
VFX studio beloFX posted its breakdown for Mother Mary, David Lowery’s pop star drama for A24. Anne Hathaway plays the title character, a singer preparing a comeback show, opposite Michaela Coel. The film opened in US theaters in April 2026.
The studio kept the video description to one line, so the footage does the talking. At 2 minutes 53 seconds it is the longest breakdown of the week. It is also a nice change of pace from the dragons and zombies: a music drama, not a fantasy or horror show.
Reels and Retrospectives
Rodeo FX: 20 Years, Frame by Frame, Episode 4
Rodeo FX is marking its 20th year with a series that picks one shot and walks through it. Episode 4 takes the establishing shot of dystopian Los Angeles from Blade Runner 2049, with Performance Director Adam O’Brien-Locke.
The studio says the film was its fourth project with Denis Villeneuve, and the partnership has since grown to seven. Blade Runner 2049 won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects. For more Villeneuve, see our Dune VFX breakdown.
FOLKS: Features Reel 2026
FOLKS also put out a new features reel. It pulls from Michael, Marty Supreme, Final Destination Bloodlines, Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, The Black Phone 2 and The Creator, among others.
One of Us: 2026 Environments Reel
One of Us released an environments reel: misty volcanoes, icy mountains, deserts, post-apocalyptic wastelands, historical cities and fantasy worlds. If set extensions and digital matte painting are your area, this is the one to study.
Quiet Week Elsewhere
If you know of any current(2022-) breakdown videos from ILM, Weta FX, DNEG, Digital Domain, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Image Engine or Cinesite. Lets us know and link them in the contact form. If you represent a studio then drop us a link or two.
We will try to round up new studio breakdowns every Friday(maybe). Looking for older ones? The VFX Breakdown Archives hold 120 more, sorted by film and studio.
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