Rodeo FX shared their breakdown of the VFX shots for HBO's House of the Dragon Season 3. In the latest season, which came out this summer, the team was responsible for 394 shots and 46,327 frames. This time, a team of 133 people delivered mind-blowing visuals under the supervision of Sébastien Francoeur, known for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Game of Thrones, and The Witcher.

As the artists explain, in season 3, their environments had to tell two completely different stories. In King's Landing, the VFX part had to melt into the picture seamlessly – the team created street extensions so they could disappear entirely into the plate. Much of what we see in King's Landing is practical, with some neatly matte-painted blue-screen parts.

The mesmerizing views of Tumbleton, on the other hand, were crafted entirely from scratch. It allowed the artists to carry out significantly less matte-painting cleanup than King's Landing required. As Rodeo states, "The team is especially proud of how it holds up on screen."

For the closing scenes of the season, Rodeo FX did the heavy lifting by handling crowd work for the final battle across about a hundred shots. Plus, they did dragon fire VFX in the scene, along with destruction VFX for the environments of Tumbleton. 

Rodeo FX began creating visuals for the famous HBO series based on George R. R. Martin's fantasy novels, starting with season 2. Back then, they handled about 10,000 fewer frames and 127 fewer shots, making season 3 a much larger VFX task for the team.

Subscribe to our Newsletter, join our 80 Level Talent platform, Discord, and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, and Instagram, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.

Are you a fan of what we do here at 80 Level? Then make sure to set us as a Preferred Source on Google to see more of our content in your feed.