Visual Effects (VFX) and 3D Animation, while ever-growing industries, remain challenging tasks with steep learning curves, due to the complexity of a myriad of things: the VFX pipeline, lack of visualization of live-action sets within VFX environments, editing realistic motion in 3D character animation. Our work introduces VFXR, a novel Virtual Reality system that transforms the way animators interact with CGI by merging spatial and temporal editing in a truly immersive 3D space. By allowing users to directly manipulate character joints with intuitive hand gestures and visualizing keyframes as spatial anchors within the 3D environment accompanied by ghosting effects for real-time feedback, VFXR alleviates the cognitive burden of traditional, timeline-based methods where animators have to use multiple views to work on a single CGI element. Moreover, by integrating Gaussian Splatting to reconstruct photorealistic real world sets directly from the live-action footage, our system aims to provide a seamless, context-aware editing environment that bridges the gap between digital characters and their real-world settings during the animation/VFX process. Designed to empower both novices and seasoned professionals, VFXR aims to offer an innovative, hands-on approach that enhances motion editing and paves the way for more immersive and realistic VFX workflows.

My research interest in computer graphics stems from my passion for animation and storytelling. As an animation enthusiast myself, I have experienced firsthand the challenges of animation tools which are often complex and hard to pick up. Therefore, I want to contribute to the animation process, and the art of storytelling by designing intuitive, streamlined systems that allow anyone to bring their creative visions to life. My research tackles this massive challenge from the motion editing and scene visualization perspectives, leveraging the power of virtual reality as well as recent advances in Gaussian Splatting to make 3D animation more approachable and empower both beginners and professionals to tell their stories with greater ease and expressivity.