Jim Thacker

Jim Thacker is editor of CG Channel and covers the tools and technologies used by CG artists and visual effects professionals, with a focus on how new software and plugins change day-to-day production work. He writes the masthead’s news stories and interview features, curating the flow of updates across 3D, VFX, game, and visualization tools rather than treating them as general tech announcements. His coverage stands out for detailed, practical explanations of new features and for framing releases around what matters to artists at workstations, not generic consumers or enterprise buyers.

CG software and game engines for production artists

Thacker’s core reporting tracks major releases of CG applications and game engines, always from the perspective of how artists will use them in production. His coverage of Unreal Engine 5.7 and 5.8, for example, picks out five key features specifically for CG artists, from experimental terrain systems like Mesh Terrain to plant editors and updates to MetaHumans.

When Maxon releases Cinema 4D 2026.3, he focuses on changes that affect daily workflows, such as the new UV editor and a dedicated Particle Property Manager, and explains how they integrate with modeling and motion graphics toolsets. In stories on Autodesk discontinuing Mudbox, he traces the decision through subscription timelines, the lack of meaningful feature updates in recent versions, and the replacement path offered to existing users, showing how policy decisions translate into practical implications for concept artists and VFX teams.

Across these pieces, he combines close reading of release notes with clear summaries of where a tool fits in the wider CG software stack.

Round-ups of emerging tools and AI-powered workflows

Alongside single-product stories, Thacker produces regular “New CG software you may have missed” round-ups that distill a week’s worth of smaller but significant releases. These columns scan across categories - real-time lighting tools like HDR Light Studio, GPU renderers such as Maverick Render, OctaneRender and Radeon ProRender, and rigging frameworks like mGear - giving each update a concise summary focused on what is new and why it matters.

He pays particular attention to AI-driven capabilities, highlighting features such as Animcraft’s AI rigging and animation systems, video-to-video generative AI in SwitchX, and AI 3D model generation in the Chaos Cosmos asset library.

The round-ups also track changes in core engines like Unigine, noting improvements to animation tools like the Sequencer and Animation Graph that make the software more viable for entertainment work as well as industrial simulation. This format positions him as a curator of the CG tools ecosystem, ensuring less-publicized releases still reach specialist readers with enough detail to judge relevance to their own pipelines.

Plugins, image-editing tools and technical resources for artists

Thacker devotes significant coverage to plugins and add-ons that extend mainstream tools, often zeroing in on realism and control. His piece on Physical Atmosphere² for Blender, for instance, explains how the plugin generates day and night skies, introduces true spectral atmospheres with multiple scattering, and even models ozone and atmospheric pollution to match real-world conditions. In image-editing, he tracks updates to Photoshop 27.6 with the same practical lens, focusing on AI-assisted tools such as Rotate Object for turning 2D cutouts into rotatable “3D” images, reflection removal for shooting through glass, and refinements to Generative Fill and other AI features used in entertainment workflows.

He treats open-source software with equal seriousness, covering GIMP 3.2 by detailing the arrival of vector layers, link layers that function like Smart Objects, improvements to digital painting, and better interoperability with Photoshop. Beyond software, he highlights technical resources such as a paid PDF that lists PBR color values for around 600 real-world materials measured with a spectrophotometer, explaining how expanded data on metals in clean and oxidized states serves both “materials nerds” and artists who need quick, accurate reference values. His work also includes coverage of markerless motion capture plugins for MetaHuman Animator, pointing artists to free tools that connect performance capture directly to digital humans without requiring specialist hardware.

Through these stories he consistently surfaces tools and references that tighten the link between physical reality, digital rendering, and efficient production.

Visual effects breakdowns and industry context

Not all of Thacker’s coverage is strictly about software features; he also reports on studio breakdowns that show those tools in use on high-profile projects. In his piece on DNEG’s work for the alternate-history series Star City, he describes how the studio builds period-accurate visual effects, from detailed lunar south pole landscapes to historically grounded Soviet spacecraft, fighter jets, and digi-doubles for cosmonauts.

He connects asset creation and shot work to the broader aesthetic goal of grounding speculative fiction in period realism, illustrating how technical craft supports a specific narrative world. This kind of coverage gives readers a view of how the tools and techniques he reports on elsewhere are applied in production, tying software updates back to real sequences and studio pipelines.

Background in CG publishing and training

Thacker’s editorial background underpins the depth of his coverage.

He is editor of CG Channel, responsible for curating and writing the site’s news stories, features and interviews. Before that role he was editor of 3D World magazine and contributing editor on blogs for ArtStation and Gnomon, and he has written for technology and software firms including AMD, Autodesk, Blender Institute, Foundry and Maxon.

He has also acted as development editor for instructional and art books published by Focal Press, Design Studio Press and 3dtotal, and has lectured on 3D and visual effects at institutions ranging from major national galleries to film institutes. This long-standing involvement in CG publishing and education gives his reporting a dual orientation: it assumes a knowledgeable audience, yet remains careful in unpacking technical changes so working artists can quickly understand what each update or tool offers them.