“We can live, work, and play in the Internet as a place”: Jon Gagne speaks on building the future

Masterpiece Studio’s CEO shares thoughts on the metaverse and more

Source: Crayta - Unit 2 Games/Facebook Gaming

For many of us, the metaverse is an abstract concept; a futuristic idea that’s hard to picture in everyday life. But for Masterpiece Studio’s CEO, Jonathan Gagne, it’s a dream that’s about to become a reality.

As the leader of a company on a mission to democratize 3D creation, Jon has fully embraced the idea that the world is about to change. For him and his team of creatives, breaking barriers isn’t just a once-in-a-while occurrence — it’s a part of their everyday routine.

Keep reading for his take on Masterpiece Studio’s immersive 3D design pipeline, the massive shift that’s coming to life as we know it, and why it’s the perfect time to get onboard with the future of design.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and the role you play at Masterpiece Studio.

JG: I’m Jon Gagne, CEO of Masterpiece Studio. I founded this company in 2015, after working in machine learning, virtual reality, and content creation for over a decade, and seeing the opportunity to revolutionize 3D content creation first-hand. Today we’ve grown to a team of more than 25 and have built the first-ever fully immersive 3D creation pipeline.

Source: Masterpiece Studio CEO Jonathan Gagne accepts the 2021 Auggie Award for Best Creator Tool

Can you speak to the evolution of Masterpiece Studio, from the ideation stage to its evolution into the successful company it is today?

JG: The goal was always to democratize 3D creation; to take something that less than 0.1% of people can do, and to transform it into something that everyone can do. It started out with the idea that virtual reality and machine learning could revolutionize how we create 3D content — and we’re seeing that play out today.

Instead of taking years to learn how to create great 3D models, we can start to create in a few seconds, create a whole project in a couple of hours, and get good at it in a few days. That’s now further evolving to the point where this will be the first no-code equivalent of 3D creation. It’s the first top-down creation — kind of like what WordPress did for making websites, where you didn’t have to create everything yourself but start with modifiable templates. We’re doing that for 3D modeling, where users won’t have to create everything themselves; they don’t need technical experience or a background in fine arts to create high quality content.

Our product enables people to start without learning 10,000 tools. Instead, they can specify what their use case is and then dive deeper into that as needed, depending on their skill. This takes a complex process and makes it easy.

Source: Spatial

How do you envision the future of design and creation?

JG: Up to this point, 3D creation has been an untouchable area for most people — but in the next few years, this will open up to the masses and become something that anybody can do. Soon you will no longer need advanced technical or artistic skills to start to create since software will become your virtual assistant to help you create what you imagine.

If you do have artistic skills, you’ll be able to dive even deeper. This will open up the world to remixing — not starting from scratch, but taking any content in the world and easily mixing it together with new or other existing content to create something fundamentally new.

On top of that, as we continue to create, machine learning gets better and better. Piece by piece, we automate the pipeline to the point where we can generate entire scenes with AI automatically. So instead of trying to build every single detail from scratch, you start with a whole scene, and then you can modify parts of it to bring your vision to life.

Source: Top Trend Coins

Can you go into further detail on remixing? Would that mean taking elements of the real world and putting them into 3D creation?

JG: There’s going to be a blending of the worlds. First, you can take any of the existing 3D assets that are already on the Internet — 3D models, characters, or scans — and bring them into your project, but there’s also the option to bring in the real world; to scan and take photogrammetry of the world around you. It will allow you to import your world into the virtual world, and then have the powerful tools to modify and create it, to make it your own.

Is there an industry that’s primarily using this right now, like gaming? Or is there an industry that’s really starting to delve into this further?

JG: We’re moving towards the metaverse: this digital 3D world where we can live, work, and play in the internet as a place. The accelerator for this has been the gaming space. So gaming is, in a sense, eating the world. Games are becoming a reality as they integrate into everyday life.

I compare it to the early days of computers — they used to be something only “computer companies” used to build software, but now, every company is a computer company in a sense. Everyone leverages that technology; it’s just become integrated into how we do things. This is what’s happening with the digital world — we’re already integrated into it, and it’s becoming more and more a part of our lives.

Today, we already easily spend 8–10 hours a day immersed in the digital world. The difference is that instead of being a medium we simply communicate across, it will become a place that we interact within. This will essentially change every job, because we will live and play in an environment that’s a blend of the physical and digital world. It’s why what we’re doing is so important: our product will allow us to create these worlds.

Source: Masterpiece Studio

How do you envision Masterpiece Studio being a part of the metaverse?

JG: The metaverse is a digital world where you can live, work and play — but to build this place, you need a lot of components, just like how billions of people today have built all the things for our physical world. We will need everybody to contribute to the digital world for the metaverse to come to fruition. We really need everybody to be able to create and participate in it, which is why what we’re building at Masterpiece Studio is so critical.

Today, there are zero tools or platforms that make it easy to create the kind of high-quality production content that can run in these virtual environments. There are zero that are usable by everyday people. So, this is the first of its kind to do that, and it’s key because it does two major things. One, it allows anyone to be able to create and contribute. Two, it will unlock the ability to transfer assets from one virtual space to another.

As we move into the metaverse and we gain our sense of digital identity, we will want the ability to bring our stuff with us from one world to the next. Now, a lot of people in the open metaverse are talking about this, but what gets glossed over is the fact it’s actually impossible to do this today. As of this year, our software will be the only one that will be able to convert assets from the requirements of one virtual world to another. It will open up the ability — for the first time ever — for everyone to create our digital worlds as well as transfer things from one place to the next.

How do you envision the metaverse being adopted into the general public? What’s the next step to integrate it into peoples’ lives?

JG: A lot of people are positioning this to be the next version of the Internet, or the next major computing platform. Just like the Internet, it’s going to enter all of our lives more and more. The obvious examples are games, like Fortnite or VR Chat or any of these virtual worlds, but it will spread from there. I see it becoming increasingly useful not only for play, but for living and interacting with people.

As the productivity increases, it will become a disadvantage not to be part of it. Almost like trying to run a business without the Internet today, it’s going to be really difficult for most companies to operate without a connection to the metaverse. For example, there is a huge cost to train and onboard employees for many organizations. What if that could be virtualized? What if you could interact and learn in this virtual way, in a world where anything is possible?

This is just one of many examples, but essentially, this digital overlay will make all of us more effective at doing the things we need to do to succeed.

Source: Horizon Worlds

Sounds like an exciting time for the industry, and an amazing time to join the team. If you were talking to someone who wanted to know more about Masterpiece Studio’s company culture, what would you tell them?

JG: We have a company culture that’s uplifting, collaborative, and excited about changing the world. We’re not focused on where the dollar is going to come from tomorrow; our employees are not cogs in a wheel. Our employees have the autonomy to make decisions, to make an impact, to work with other people that are brilliant.

To work at Masterpiece means building something that has meaning. We’re focused on changing how the world works. People on our team have pride in knowing that their work is making a difference and improving how we live.

We’re constantly inventing, we’re constantly looking for the smartest ways to do things. We aren’t excited by the status quo; for us, it’s about figuring out how the best in the world are doing it today and then how we can do it better.

Take your career to a new dimension with our rapidly growing team!

Working for Masterpiece Studio means building the future — the projects you will work on here will be ones you won’t want to stop talking about, researching, and exploring every chance you get.

If you’re interested in living on the cutting edge of tech, art, and business theory, joining our Talent Network is a great way to learn more about the new digital world, to get to know our brilliant team and to stay on the pulse of Masterpiece Studio news and job opportunities.