Tim Miller and David Fincher's Love, Death & Robots was an intriguing sci-fi anthology series that pushed the boundaries of creative storytelling and animation techniques. Netflix renewed the series for a second season back in June 2019 but we, unfortunately, haven't heard much about it since.
However, we got an intriguing morsel of detail regarding an episode in the upcoming second season. It comes by way of Animation World Network, which published an interview with Sony Pictures Imageworks senior VFX supervisor Jerome Chen. The interview is largely focused on the innovative ways Epic's Unreal Engine is being used in film and television productions. While Unreal Engine is primarily used for video game development, the system's real-time production tools are being integrated into film and television. As the site notes:
For Jerome Chen, an Oscar-nominated senior VFX supervisor at Sony Pictures Imageworks, Unreal Engine has become an invaluable tool, allowing real-time animation production and review in ways that have fundamentally changed his creative process.
One place where you'll see Unreal Engine being used is the second season of Love, Death & Robots. Chen revealed he has been using Unreal Engine for an episode in the upcoming season. He didn't go into specific details about the episode, but revealed that it's "all CG in the style of high-end game cinematics with human characters and creatures."
"Our front-end workflow involves Maya, ZBrush, and Houdini, but the commitment is to try to stay in Unreal Engine as much as possible and break out where it makes sense," he continued. "This is our first foray into Unreal, and we're very excited about the possibilities."
Most of the interview is Chen praising what Unreal Engine has opened up for him on the animation front, so if you're interested in reading more about it, definitely check out the article. As for Love, Death & Robots Season 2, well, we still don't have a date for when it will premiere on Netflix.
In the meantime, you can definitely catch up on the first season, which consists of 18 stand-alone episodes. Chen actually directed "Lucky 13," a Season One episode about a pilot's experience with a dropship that's believed to be unlucky.