Let Artists Play | Fix It In Prompt Ep. 003

The models keep changing, but the production advantage still belongs to artists who know what breaks—and how to fix it.

This week on Fix It In Prompt, Alex Villabon and Doug Hogan catch up after a summer break and look at FLUX 3, MiniMax H3, the gap between closed APIs and local open-weight models, and why a production pipeline cannot be built on impressive demos alone.

We get into The Odyssey's practical IMAX mirror rig, Lucy 2.5, Eyeline Labs' ID-V2V, Neill Blomkamp's Nightborne, ComfyUI training and workflow version control, hybrid AI/VFX skills, SmartRoto, and why final pixels still need artists who can finish the work.

💬 What AI or VFX workflow are you testing right now—and where does it still fall apart before the shot is production-ready? Let us know in the comments.

📬 CONTACT

Email us: [email protected]

Find Doug:

ComfyUI & VFX website: https://www.doughogan.com

ComfyUI Workflows: https://comfyui.sjv.io/OYydOG

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/doughogan

Find Alex:

VFX + AI newsletter: https://alexvillabon.substack.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/avillabon/

🔗 LINKS MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE

Black Forest Labs — FLUX 3:

https://bfl.ai/models/flux-3

MiniMax H3 — official open weights:

https://huggingface.co/MiniMaxAI/MiniMax-H3

ComfyUI — MiniMax H3 guide and workflows:

https://docs.comfy.org/tutorials/video/minimax/minimax-h3

Decart — Lucy 2.5 real-time video editing:

https://platform.decart.ai/models/lucy-edit-live

Eyeline Labs — ID-V2V identity-preserving video restylization:

https://github.com/Eyeline-Labs/ID-V2V

The Allan McKay Podcast — ComfyUI in VFX Production with Doug Hogan

https://allanmckay.libsyn.com/468-comfyui-in-vfx-production-with-doug-hogan

NIGHTBORNE, a Neill Blomkamp AI short film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wbtt2JxP7g

The Odyssey's IMAX mirror system:

https://www.motionpictures.org/2026/07/how-mirrors-became-the-key-to-filming-the-odyssey-entirely-with-imax-cameras/

Alex's Workflow Vault

https://github.com/avillabon/ComfyUI_Workflow_Vault

Official ComfyUI Tutorial for Beginners: Full Node Graph Basics (2026):

https://youtu.be/TQhIYT1ZYGQ?si=7gDEODLDhhm826OR

Doug Hogan — official Comfy workflow templates:

https://comfy.org/workflows/doughogan/

Victor Perez — Generative AI for VFX, ComfyUI × Nuke course:

https://victorperez.co.uk/

Foundry — SmartRoto:

https://www.foundry.com/products/nuke-family/smartroto

Compositing Academy — How SMART is State of the Art A.I Rotoscoping?:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AinQkgdR6b8

⏱️ TIMECODES

00:00 Coming back to an impossible release cycle

02:04 FLUX 3 and MiniMax H3 raise the ceiling

07:21 Will local weights match the API demos?

11:49 Seedance 2.5 pricing and the cost of pressing Run

13:43 The Odyssey's practical IMAX mirror trick

17:13 Comments, Hermes agents, and future guests

21:28 Lucy 2.5 and real-time diffusion

25:22 Eyeline Labs, ID-V2V, and Paul Debevec

27:56 Neil Blomkamp's Nightborne and letting artists experiment

36:16 Artist-led AI studios and hybrid VFX skills

39:25 Comfy 101 and where artists should start

45:20 Learning from other artists' node graphs

51:44 Alex's Workflow Vault, version control, and hardware

58:41 SmartRoto, subscriptions, and pricing artists out

#DellProPrecision #DellProMax #DellTech #NVIDIA #AI #VFX #ComfyUI #OpenWeights #FLUX3 #MiniMaxH3 #LucyAI #Nuke #SmartRoto #Filmmaking