Best VFX Studios in Sydney (2026)

Introduction

Sydney has 11 VFX and CG studios worth knowing in 2026, ranging from small Surry Hills shops that finish television commercials to the local arms of Industrial Light & Magic and DNEG. The list below covers studios that make visual effects and CG work in Sydney, for advertising, film and episodic clients.

The city’s VFX market rests on two kinds of work. Agencies and production companies bring a steady flow of commercials, which suits the boutique houses around Surry Hills and Darlinghurst. Film and streaming productions bring the large shot counts, helped by federal screen incentives and a local crew base built over the last decade. The mix keeps shifting: Animal Logic now operates as Netflix Animation Studios, FIN marked its 25th year in 2026 as part of the Dream Machine FX collective, and ReDefine set up its Australian arm in Sydney.

Every studio here has a Sydney studio in 2026, confirmed on its own site or its Ausfilm profile. The list is in no fixed order, since the right studio depends on the shot count, the schedule and whether the job is a 30-second spot or a streaming series.

The best VFX studios in Sydney

1. FIN VFX

Member of the Dream Machine FX collective · Sydney · findesign.com.au

FIN started as a small crew in Darlinghurst and turned 25 in 2026. It now has more than 250 people across studios in Sydney, Melbourne, the Gold Coast, Ballina and Adelaide, and belongs to Dream Machine FX, a group of VFX studios that also includes Important Looking Pirates and Zero VFX. FIN won the 2022 AACTA Award for Best Visual Effects for Elvis, and its studio news highlights the five visual effects awards won by The Creator.

Film and episodic credits include Alien: Earth, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Murderbot and M3GAN, and its trailer and title work in 2026 includes Lanterns and the Sonic the Hedgehog 4 title reveal. It also runs a commercials side, with its own contact for advertising jobs.

2. Heckler

Multi-city studio group · Surry Hills · heckler.tv

Heckler is a visual effects, post-production and sound studio based in Paramount House in Surry Hills, with further studios in Singapore, Shanghai and Amsterdam. The Sydney studio has six post suites, and its artists cover CGI, compositing, animation, design, editing and colour.

Clients include Apple, Samsung, Woolworths, Macquarie Bank, AAMI and Mirvac, and recent work includes “Light of Riyadh” for World Expo 2025 Osaka and a 2026 campaign for Abu Dhabi Tourism. Its work has been recognised at Cannes Lions, D&AD, One Show, Spikes Asia and AWARD.

3. Alt.vfx

Owned by its artists and producers · Sydney · altvfx.com

Alt.vfx is an Australian VFX and post studio with studios in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Los Angeles and Tokyo. It covers commercials, film and television, and has added virtual production and editorial and colour to its VFX work.

Recent commercials include Allianz “Care Never Gives Up”, the KIA EV range, Toyota GR x McDonald’s “Dream Match” and Tourism Australia’s “Come and Say G’Day”. On the long-form side it has worked on Deadloch season 2, Alice in Borderland season 3 and Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog.

4. DNEG Sydney

Part of DNEG · Pyrmont · dneg.com

DNEG opened its Sydney studio in Pyrmont in 2022 as its tenth global location, with Oscar-winning VFX supervisor Andrew Jackson as creative director. The studio handles VFX for film and episodic work and also houses a DNEG Animation team.

It launched with George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. DNEG is a large studio built for feature-scale shot counts, so it suits productions that need capacity and a global pipeline more than short commercial jobs.

5. Industrial Light & Magic Sydney

Lucasfilm (Disney) · Sydney · ilm.com

ILM’s Sydney studio is one of five ILM studios worldwide, alongside San Francisco, Vancouver, London and Mumbai. ILM won at the 2026 AEAF Awards, and its news pages for Sydney feature artists on Stranger Things season 5, Wicked: For Good, Tron: Ares and Anaconda.

Credits listed on its Ausfilm profile include Lilo & Stitch, Superman, Alien: Romulus and Star Wars: Skeleton Crew. Work at ILM Sydney comes largely through studio features and series rather than local advertising.

6. Blackbird

Artist-owned · Surry Hills · studioblackbird.com.au

Blackbird is an independent VFX studio founded in 2013 and based in a heritage terrace in Surry Hills. It specialises in photoreal live-action VFX sequences, with concept art, previs, character design and CG animation in-house. Nerissa Kavanagh is executive producer and managing director.

Credits include Mortal Kombat II, The Last of Us season 2, Better Man, Bad Boys: Ride or Die and The Equalizer 3, and the studio has worked for Apple TV+, Amazon, ABC Signature and Hulu. It is a small team, which suits productions that want senior attention on a defined set of sequences.

7. Future Associate

Founder-led · Marrickville · future-associate.com

Future Associate was set up in 2018 by VFX supervisor Lindsay Adams, whose credits include Mad Max: Fury Road and Elvis. It works from a purpose-built 750 sqm facility in Marrickville and handles CG environments, digital doubles, crowd simulation and FX work such as fire and water.

Recent credits include Mortal Kombat II, The Bluff for Amazon, Dangerous Animals and NCIS: Sydney season 3. The studio says it can scale to more than 500 shots for episodic work, and it holds TPN Gold certification.

8. Supervixen

Independent · Surry Hills · supervixen.com.au

Supervixen is a design and VFX studio on Foveaux Street in Surry Hills, led by company director Daniel Bavell. It works across concept art, on-set design, motion graphics and high-end VFX, often from early design through to final shots.

Its film and series credits include Lanterns, Spaceballs 2, Tron: Ares, Murderbot, Stranger Things season 4 and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. It is a good fit for screen graphics and design-heavy sequences as well as advertising and brand work.

9. ReDefine Sydney

Prime Focus group · Sydney · redefine.co

ReDefine Sydney is the Australian arm of ReDefine, a VFX and animation company within the Prime Focus group, which runs 17 studios across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Alaric McAusland leads the Sydney operation, which joined Ausfilm in 2026.

Recent credits include The Strangers: Chapter 2, The Terminal List: Dark Wolf, The Eternaut and The Penguin. Productions shooting in Australia can work with a local team while drawing on the wider network for volume.

10. Electric Art

Australian private company · Sydney · electricart.com.au

Electric Art is a Sydney CGI and retouching studio with around 30 years of work behind it, also represented in the US. It covers CGI, animation, VFX, interactive work and high-end retouching, and its campaigns have won gold at Cannes, the Clio Awards, AdFest and AWARD.

Clients include Toyota, Lexus, Heineken, Samsung, Mercedes, Qantas, Commonwealth Bank and Singapore Airlines, with recent work for Woolworths, Magnum and Mars. It suits agencies that need photoreal CG products, vehicles or creatures for print and motion.

11. Plastic Wax

CG and cinematics studio · Sydney · plasticwax.com

Plastic Wax is a Sydney CG studio known for game trailers and cinematics, with 3D animation, Unreal Engine work, VFX and its own motion-capture stage. It offers a turnkey model, so a publisher can hand over a whole trailer or a single part of one.

Recent clients include Krafton and Unknown Worlds (Subnautica 2), 1047 Games (Splitgate 2), Warner Bros Games (Mortal Kombat 1, Hogwarts Legacy) and THQ Nordic (Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed). It also offers remote directing for clients overseas.

What to look for in a Sydney VFX studio

Match the studio to the shape of the job. A 30-second commercial with a two-week turnaround needs a small, fast team with Flame and CG artists in the same room, which is how many of the Surry Hills houses work. A streaming series with several hundred shots needs pipeline, render capacity and production management, and that is where the larger studios and the film-focused independents fit.

Ask who will supervise your shots. Sydney’s VFX crew moves between studios as film work comes and goes, so the supervisor and lead artists named in the pitch matter more than the reel. If the studio is part of a wider group, ask which work stays in Sydney and which goes to other sites.

For film and episodic work, check how the studio handles incentives and security. Many productions claim the federal PDV Offset, and some studios hold TPN certification for pre-release content. Your producer and the studio should confirm eligibility and requirements early rather than at delivery.

Then look at review and delivery. VFX generates large render files, many versions and a long trail of notes. Ask how the studio shares shots for review, how feedback is logged against each version and how final files are handed over, because that process decides how much time is lost between rounds.

How Fabric helps VFX teams

Fabric gives a VFX team one workspace for its files, shot references and production knowledge, with AI search across all of it. Renders, plates and reference material sit in Fabric’s cloud drive, which streams files on demand so they take no local disk space, and heavy media opens without a full download. There is more on handling large output in where rendering files should live.

Search works by meaning across documents, images, PDFs and transcribed audio and video, and colour search finds frames and references by shade. When an artist needs references that look like an existing shot, similar search finds images with matching composition, colour and subject.

For shot review, any file or folder can be published as a web page and shared with password protection, which suits pre-release work. Clients and agency producers can leave threaded comments through a shared link without creating an account. Reviewers can leave timestamped comments on video and draw on any image or video frame, so each note points to the exact shot and moment. Canvas works for lookdev boards and storyboards, with embeds from Figma, YouTube and Vimeo.

Production teams can turn a folder into a kanban board whose cards are the shot files themselves, moving them from blocking to comp to final. Supervisor briefings and client calls can be transcribed so decisions are searchable later.

Password protection is included on Pro and Team plans. See plans for teams.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best VFX studio in Sydney?

There is no single answer, as it depends on the work. For feature and episodic shot counts, ILM, DNEG, FIN and ReDefine have the largest local teams. For commercials, Heckler, Alt.vfx and Electric Art have long agency client lists, and Blackbird, Future Associate and Supervixen are strong independent options for film sequences.

What happened to Animal Logic?

Netflix acquired Animal Logic in 2022, and the Sydney studio now operates as Netflix Animation Studios. It works on Netflix animated features rather than outside VFX clients, so it is not on this list. Sydney’s animation studios are covered in the best animation studios in Sydney.

How much does VFX for a Sydney TV commercial cost?

Costs depend on shot count, CG complexity and turnaround, and clean-up or compositing work costs far less than full CG sequences. Studios quote per job after reviewing the script or board, so share the treatment and any references as early as you can and ask for the quote to list shots and revision rounds.

Do Sydney VFX studios work on international productions?

Yes. ILM Sydney and DNEG Sydney work on studio features and series, and independents such as Future Associate, Blackbird and Supervixen list credits on Mortal Kombat II, The Last of Us and Tron: Ares. Many productions use the federal PDV Offset when placing VFX work in Australia.

Which Sydney VFX studios also offer colour and editing?

Heckler and Alt.vfx both offer editing and colour alongside VFX. Productions that need a specialist grade can also look at Sydney’s colour grading studios.

Related lists

VFX in other cities: New York · London · Los Angeles · Chicago · Toronto

More in Sydney: Creative agencies · Post-production · Animation · Colour grading · Video production

Run your studio on Fabric: Fabric for creative teams · Best video asset management tools · Best creative proofing tools