An Australian sci-fi thriller set in the near future, In Vitro follows the fallout of an animal breeding experiment gone wrong. The film is built around a high-concept premise that demanded photorealistic CG animal work capable of holding up alongside live performance and real locations.
The film premiered at the Sydney Film Festival in June 2024, receiving praise for its raw story, strong performances, and impressive visuals.
40+ VFX shots across the film, anchored by a fully CG cow built to match the live-action animal cast in the film. The asset was deployed across a range of environments — indoors, outdoors, and in a water tank — wherever working with the live animal wasn't practical.
The water tank sequence was the most technically demanding: a full fluid simulation in Houdini with the CG cow as a collider, driving water displacement, white-water foam, and surface interaction. Digital set extensions rounded out the near-future world of the film.
/ The CG Cow
The brief was to create a photorealistic CG duplicate of the cow actually cast in the film — then make it available to the filmmakers wherever working with a live animal wasn't practical, which turned out to be a significant proportion of the shoot.
We built the asset from live-action reference footage of the real cow used on set, matching coat, musculature, and proportion as closely as possible. Once approved, the model became the workhorse of the production, placed in the background to fill out frames, substituted for a stand-in prop across a number of takes, and deployed across environments ranging from indoor facilities to open outdoor locations.
/ The Water Tank
The most technically demanding shot placed the CG cow in a water tank. We started with a digital track of the original footage to establish virtual cameras that matched the plate precisely. Everything else was built from that foundation.
Proxy geometry was fashioned for the tank and its surroundings, giving us the collision structure needed to run a full fluid simulation in Houdini. The CG cow was used as a collider, so the simulated water reacted to the animal's movement — surface displacement, splashing, and white-water foam driven by the geometry rather than keyframes. Selective 2D splash elements were added in compositing for the most active moments, selling the energy of the sequence.
/ Mattes & Digital Set Extensions
Integrating real and simulated water required rotoscoping, mask renders, and warping of the original plates — blending the practical water in the original footage with the simulated fluid so that the join is invisible.
Beyond the animal work, we handled digital set extensions designed to push the film's near-future world. In Vitro is set in a time that reads as familiar but slightly wrong — so our extensions were built to be present without being conspicuous. The schoolyard sequence is a clear example: changes ranged from updated signage and a vehicle decal replacement through to inserting entire buildings into the background.