The Industry's Just Here to Piss You Off This Week
Let's start with the fact that Unity's latest move is somehow both predictable and batshit insane. They're shutting down ironSource (the ad network they paid $4.4 billion for in 2022) and selling Supersonic. Apparently, Unity Vector is doing gangbusters, so they're pivoting to... whatever the hell that is. If you're keeping score at home: buy bloated ad-tech company, realize it's a flaming dumpster fire, then sell the parts you didn't destroy. Classic corporate efficiency. Meanwhile, actual developers are left wondering if their engine's business model is just a series of increasingly desperate pivots.
"Unity's preliminary Q1 2026 results are better than expected, largely thanks to Unity Vector."
Oh, cool. So the thing they're actually good at is... something called Unity Vector? Not making game engines? Got it. This is the tech equivalent of a restaurant that's suddenly famous for its napkins.
Meanwhile, Artists Are Still Doing the Actual Work
While Unity's leadership plays musical chairs with their acquisitions, actual artists are out here making magic. Jeremy White dropped a water simulation with realistic caustics using Blender and the Real Caustics add-on by Sergei Zakharov. You know, actual innovation. Not corporate reshuffling. The kind of thing that makes you go "damn, that's cool" instead of "damn, that's a 10-K filing."
And then there's Aser Godoy de Lera's mystical wolf for the short film Señuelo. Sculpted, textured, brought to life - the whole deal. This is what happens when artists actually get to create instead of watching their tools' parent companies burn money on ad networks. Maarten Hof is back too, with another modular scene - this time an old wine cellar that's so detailed you can practically smell the Merlot. These are the people keeping 3D art alive while executives debate whether to sell off their worst decisions.
Big Studios Still Know How to Make Us Jealous
Riot's VALORANT "Come Home" short film is out, and of course it's gorgeous. They used Moho for the 2D animation, which is either a brilliant choice or a flex - who knows. The point is, they made something that looks like it cost more than most countries' GDPs, and we all get to sit here wondering how many artists had to sacrifice their sanity to hit that deadline.
Base FX's work on Wonder Man's face-punching scene is the kind of thing that makes you question reality. That's some quality entertainment, all right - the kind that requires a small army of VFX artists working at 3 AM to make sure the digital blood splatters just right. Meanwhile, I'm over here trying to get a rock texture to not look like Play-Doh.
What's Actually Coming
Substance 3D's still kicking with artists like Ilana Katz dropping stone trimsheet materials that make you actually care about rocks. ZBrush and Unreal Engine 5 courses are popping up everywhere - because apparently we all need to learn how to make low-poly scenes that don't look like they came from a 2005 mobile game. The tools are evolving, the artists are creating, and the corporations are... selling off their mistakes. Same as it ever was.
The real story isn't in the boardroom drama - it's in the wine cellars, the water caustics, and the wolves that shouldn't exist but do. Keep your eyes on the artists. They're the ones actually moving this medium forward while the suits figure out which part of the company to liquidate next quarter.