Enrique De la Garza & Kyle Lin on Building the Backbone of Creativity at Frame48

At Frame48, the Los Angeles studio has become known for marrying cinematic storytelling with high-end visual effects, and behind that artistry lies an invisible architecture – one built, tested, and refined by CG supervisor Enrique De la Garza and junior CG artist Kyle Lin.

Together, they’ve helped turn Frame48’s technical pipeline into something closer to a creative ecosystem, where automation and artistry can coexist, freeing the studio’s talent to focus on what they do best. “Our pipeline is integral to our work,” says Enrique. “It’s one of the main reasons we can reliably produce a high volume of assets in commercial timelines without sacrificing quality.”

It’s a discipline that demands patience, precision, and no small amount of imagination – qualities both Enrique and Kyle have been developing since their first days at Frame48. Enrique started six years ago as a CG intern while still at college; Kyle followed a similar path, also beginning as an intern before joining full-time. Now, the two work side by side. “I’m mainly focused on overseeing the development and implementation of new technologies and tools into our workflow,” explains Enrique. “Kyle’s work centres around FX, procedural setups, and pipeline development – all areas that constantly evolve.”

“The pipeline helps artists focus their time on the creative side of things instead of repetitive tasks,” says Kyle. “It reduces creative friction and removes the possibility of human error during crucial stages like project infrastructure creation. Instead of having artists create folders and file names, we have an automated system that maintains a standard file structure. It’s simple, but it saves time and lets us build other automation tools that rely on that consistency.”

Building the invisible engine

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For all their quiet precision, Enrique and Kyle’s work has had a loud impact. The team’s biggest leap forward has been Frame48’s new USD Houdini pipeline – a technical upgrade that fundamentally reshaped how artists collaborate. “It allows our team to work in a non-linear and non-destructive manner across multiple shots at the same time,” says Enrique. “We can make a texture change on an asset that lives in 100 shots, publish the change, and update it across all of them without any artist input.”

What used to take hours now takes seconds, and perhaps more importantly, gives the team freedom to experiment. “One artist can be working on an asset while another uses that same asset in their environment layout, and a third animates in the scene,” explains Kyle. “All of that happens without people worrying about overwriting each other’s work.”

Their new APEX rigging pipeline adds another layer of efficiency, consolidating what were once separate tools and processes into a unified workflow. “Traditionally, Maya has been the industry standard for animators,” continues Kyle. “We used to animate in Maya and import our scenes into Houdini. With the new addition of APEX, we can animate complex characters directly within the same software we use for everything else.”

That shift has helped Frame48 close the gap between departments – an achievement that, for Enrique, comes back to the core principle of creative freedom. “I firmly believe in artist autonomy,” he says. “Everyone has tasks they like and dislike, and those vary from person to person. The tedious, repetitive tasks that require zero creative input – those have to go. My goal is to remove all the noise that makes an artist’s job harder, so they can focus on what they love.”

“Automation should speed up the creative process, not sacrifice creative control,” adds Kyle. “It’s there to remove the tedious work – like finding the correct version of an asset or redoing animation after a scene update – so artists can spend their time actually creating.”​

A feedback loop of innovation

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The pair’s workflow philosophy extends to how they tackle problems. “We’re always pushing our pipeline to its limits, so it’s easy to spot areas that could use improvement,” says Enrique. “I keep a list of those areas, and when time becomes available, I start prototyping solutions in my own isolated environment. When everything’s working, I share those tools with the rest of the team and keep developing based on their feedback.”

For every project delivered, a new wave of refinements follows. “After successfully delivering a project, we almost always create a new set of bottleneck-breaking tools that become staples in our workflow,” he adds.

Kyle describes their problem-solving rhythm as collaborative and fluid. “When we encounter a bottleneck, we try to isolate the problem and test it in simpler scenes before deploying a solution into the production environment,” he says. “Working with others to brainstorm the idea – or even just saying it out loud – helps clear the mind and rewrite problematic logic. Enrique and I frequently bounce ideas off each other and discuss the best steps forward for the studio.”

It’s a dynamic that works because both are open to being challenged. “When we dedicate 100% of our focus on our own pipeline endeavours, we can overlook subtle things that may be limiting to an artist,” admits Enrique. “By checking in with the team as we develop tools, we can have conversations about any problems they’re dealing with, and often save days of accumulated work time by addressing them early. Some problems we can solve the day they’re reported – so I always encourage people not to hesitate in voicing their concerns.”

Kyle agrees, saying, “Constant iteration and communication with the artists using the tools is vital. Troubleshooting with others helps us understand which parts of the pipeline feel complicated or repetitive. That gives us the opportunity to create new tools, refine existing ones, and reduce frustration.”

It's an approach tried and tested in their recent work for Lenovo Yoga, where Kyle sat directly next to Frame48's lead animator Zhara Honoré and art director Steven Lee so they could live tweak the character rig together throughout the project. 

Looking forward

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For both Enrique and Kyle, the work is never finished – and that’s what makes it exciting. “Upgrading to the latest version of Houdini is on the horizon,” says Enrique. “SideFX introduced so many new and innovative tools, and everyone in the Frame48 team is excited to try them out in production. For a more in-depth look into what Kyle and I have been building in our pipeline, we did a HIVE presentation on the details with Frame48 founder & ECD Tom Teller earlier this year.”

Kyle is particularly eager about the animation updates in Houdini 21. “I’d love to remove the redundant steps animators have to do when moving animations from APEX to USD,” he says. “It’s about helping the animation team take full advantage of what the software can do.”

If their partnership has proven anything, it’s that the art of problem-solving is itself a creative act, built on curiosity, trust, and an unwavering commitment to craft. The systems they’ve designed may live behind the scenes, but their impact radiates through every frame of Frame48’s work.