Today's rundown for animation, game design, motion graphics, VFX, and virtual production. ## Updates **Unity posted its "strongest ever" quarterly results.** Revenue grew 32% year-over-year to $622 million — Unity's first GAAP-profitable quarter since its 2020 IPO — driven by its AI-powered ad network Vector ([GamesIndustry.biz](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/)). That's the financial backdrop to the Silver Lake/Public Investment Fund acquisition talks reported yesterday: the engine business is struggling while its AI advertising business booms. **Cartoon Brew issued a correction and apology over AI use in Sylvain Chomet's Dior ad.** The publication had reported the Triplets of Belleville director's holiday short as hand-drawn, but suspicious imagery — "check the hands, always the hands" — suggests AI use, raising questions about the ad's hand-crafted claims ([Cartoon Brew](https://www.cartoonbrew.com/)). Notable as a case study in how AI use is being detected and policed in even prestige "handmade" work — and how trade press corrects itself. **Weta FX detailed its AI stance.** CEO Daniel Seah told Variety in Taipei that major studios have gone from banning generative AI to shunning VFX vendors that lack an AI plan — "if you don't have an AI strategy, don't bother to work with us" — and that Weta signed a partnership with Taiwan's TAICCA, which will feed young Taiwanese talent into internships at its Wellington, Melbourne, and Vancouver offices, alongside its six-month GenAI collaboration with Moonshine Studio ([Variety](https://variety.com/2026/film/markets-festivals/hollywood-flipped-genai-avatar-vfx-house-weta-fx-1236941070/)). **SAG-AFTRA launched a new video game agreement.** The Pre-Funding Pitch Interactive Media Agreement lets developers hire professional union actors for demos and vertical slices before a project is fully funded, which the union says streamlines early-stage hiring ([GamesIndustry.biz](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/sag-aftra-launches-new-video-game-agreement-enabling-devs-to-hire-professional-actors-for-demos-and-vertical-slices)). Useful to know for student projects that want professional performance capture. **Two animated features to watch at the box office this weekend.** Warner Bros. Pictures Animation's The Cat in the Hat opens wide, tracking toward $20–25 million from 4,000 venues on a reported $92 million budget, against a 48% critics score ([Animation Magazine](https://www.animationmagazine.net/2026/11/the-cat-in-the-hat-reviews-round-up-latest-dr-seuss-pic-aims-for-20m-weekend/)). Meanwhile Laika's Wildwood heads into its third weekend eyeing a $38 million domestic total — a solid result that's closing in on the lifetime grosses of earlier Laika releases ([Cartoon Brew](https://www.cartoonbrew.com/)). **Chaos released V-Ray 7, Update 5.** The November 5 update brings new AI-powered tools, rendering features, and workflow improvements to the renderer used across archviz, motion design, and VFX ([Motion Media](https://www.motionmedia.com/mm-blog/)). **Studio Atelico's Atelico AI Engine entered Early Access.** The toolkit adds language models, image generation, speech systems, and AI-driven character behavior to games — giving NPCs memory — and works with Unreal, Unity, and Godot, running on players' own hardware rather than cloud servers ([Creative Bloq](https://www.creativebloq.com/news/the-new-atelico-ai-engine-gives-game-npcs-memories)). **VFX hiring is still contracting.** VFXwire counted 44 new roles this week, but studios took more roles off their pages than they posted, with closures running at almost twice the pace of new listings ([VFXwire](https://vfxwire.com/)). Bot VFX, for its part, added a new VFX supervisor and executive producer ([AnimationXpress](https://www.animationxpress.com/category/vfx/)). ## Wider context **GTA 6 launches in 12 days, and pre-orders are already massive.** Sensor Tower estimates nearly 8 million pre-orders generating about $751 million in gross revenue, with 74% bought on PlayStation 5 ([GamesIndustry.biz](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/)). The PC release is reportedly slated for Q1 2027 ([IGN](https://www.ign.com/)). Expect GTA 6 to dominate audience attention and pull spending away from other titles through the holidays — the whole Q4 slate is positioned around it. **Eros is building an "AI-powered cinematic multiverse."** The company appointed Lord of the Rings performance-capture veteran Remington Scott to head Eros Imagination, a new creative technology venture spanning VFX, animation, virtual production, gaming, and immersive concerts, drawing on proprietary "Large Cultural Models" built from roughly 1.5 trillion rights-cleared cultural tokens ([AnimationXpress](https://animationxpress.com/latest-news/eros-taps-lord-of-the-rings-veteran-remington-scott-to-lead-imagination/)). A quieter Saturday, but the through-line from this week holds: AI capability is now table stakes for vendors (Weta), engines (Unity's profits come from its AI ad network, not its engine), and even "hand-drawn" prestige work (the Chomet/Dior affair). Next rundown arrives tomorrow at 8:00 AM.