While we are sad to see The Umbrella Academy end its highly enjoyable run after four seasons, we certainly werent disappointed in how the show closed out its Netflix run. The hit series follows a family of former child heroes who have grown apart and must reunite to continue protecting the world. Stars include Elliot Page, Tom Hopper, and David Castaeda.For the VFX team at FOLKS, whove worked on the series since its inaugural season, Season 4 presented their most significant creative mandate yet. Led by VFX supervisor Laurent Spillemaecher and Head of Creatures Supervisor Gabriel Beauvais, FOLKS was responsible for conceptual pre-production work to establish different creatures' identities; postvis; final elaboration of complex shots; and creation of character and environment assets, animation, simulation, and compositing.However, their most monstrous achievement was enhancing an environment for a Christmas-themed sequence, adding crowd characters, and creating digital doubles of characters Ben and Jen in their sickly, pustulous versions. Pustulous is probably too weak a word to describe the couples decent into a huge monstrosity. These characters had to be seen in close-ups, expressing emotions and gradually transforming into a complex, bulbous creature that ultimately morphs into a viscous blob to destroy the world. Dont you hate when that happens? Season 4 focuses on the leadup to The Cleanse, which will rid humanity of errant timelines that have somehow overlapped and left remnants that a pair of rather insane, murderous academics have been collecting as proof. This all culminates with The Blob, an intelligent half-liquid, half-solid form that absorbs energy.The Blob presented significant technical challenges in FX simulation that required precise art direction to achieve the desired movement in each individual shot, Spillemaecher shares. Beneath the thick, organic simulated envelope lies a cluster of solid masses - like organs or meat pieces - that move with collisions based on a tuned rigid-body particle simulation, with guides and controllers to adjust the speed and direction to the desired location. Then, we would simulate the surrounding slimy envelope, which had a complex subsurface shading system to be able to see through.We were involved really early in the process to develop the various creatures long before principal photography, says Spillemaecher describing when their Season 4 work began. We developed a close collaborating relationship since the first season with the Netflix team and the overall VFX supervisor, Everett Burrell. We started with early scripts and, from there, started some sketches with our art department and creature supervisor, Gabriel Beauvais. Work began in February 2023, with concept art for the Ben and Jennifer merge moment, alongside their distinct looks. According to Spillemaecher, the FOLKS team also spent time focused on R&D for the FX simulations to support the various creature stages. By the end of March 2024, we delivered our final shots, completing a year of intensive VFX work. Our production and supervision team comprised 35 members, while we had 120 artists on board.Early visual development started almost from scratch. Spillemaecher explains, We actually had very little to start withalmost nothing! We kicked off our exploration using early scripts as our foundation. We also analyzed various films for inspiration, drawing from classics like Akira and John Carpenter's The Blob while also identifying certain styles we wanted to avoid. This process of determining what not to do is just as crucial in developing our concept.For FOLKS, the concept phase was critical, and was handled in a number of ways, including classic painting photos, as well as 3D sculpting tests to discuss proportions, key poses, and how certain creatures would interact with their environment, move, or behave. We also did a lot of FX simulation testing for skin surfaces, deformations, and how the creatures would eventually melt and become a blob (half-liquid, half-solid conscious form), Spillemaecher notes. Summing up their Season 4 work, Spillemaecher says production of The Blob was the biggest challenge his team faced. One of the major challenges was the evolution of the large creature, which transformed from a roughly 6-foot-tall, human-shaped figure with tentacles to a towering 100-foot monster. This required multiple asset builds and a highly adaptable internal rig system. We needed all surfaces to be movable, stretchable, and scalable simultaneously while still maintaining a coherent structure to support realistic animation behavior. Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.