At our recent SIGGRAPH Encore session, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Daniel, a talented artist and educator who led the CG Pro Unreal Filmmaker course for students in Hawaii. The conversation reminded me just how transformative cloud technology can be for both educators and students who dream of working in the film, VFX, and gaming industries.
Our SIGGRAPH panel “Cloud Classrooms Without Borders” was born from a simple question:
What if creative students—no matter where they live—could access the same high-performance VFX lab as a major studio?
A Classroom Without Barriers
Read the official article: Island Creatives, Global Careers: An Education Case Study in Remote Realtime Filmmaking
During our pilot program with CG Pro and the University of Hawaii, Daniel taught Unreal Engine filmmaking from Vancouver while students in Hawaii connected 4,000 miles away to GPU workstations in our Ohio data center. Every render, every animation, every scene—ran entirely in the cloud
It wasn’t just a technical experiment. It was a human one.
Daniel shared how, when he was a student, access to technology meant long nights and long commutes.
“There were times I stayed four days straight at school because I couldn’t take my project home. I’d combine two couches into a bed,” he laughed. “If something like the CenterGrid Cloud Classroom had existed then, it would have changed everything.”
That story hit home for many of us who remember staying late in labs, waiting for renders, or catching the last bus after class. Those sacrifices are often seen as a rite of passage in creative education—but they shouldn’t have to be.
What Daniel Noticed as an Educator
When Daniel taught his Unreal course in the cloud, the results were immediate.
Students who would normally struggle with outdated laptops or limited GPU power were suddenly working on virtual workstations more powerful than his own desktop.
“This technology gives every student equal footing,” Daniel said. “Instead of fighting their hardware, they can focus on telling their story.”
With CenterGrid’s AI-enabled cloud workstations, each student had access to:
- RTX 6000 GPUs (48GB VRAM)
- 64-core processors
- 128GB of system memory
- Shared 1TB cloud storage for collaboration
All they needed was a stable internet connection and a login.
Why It Matters for Educators
For instructors, the cloud classroom model means more than convenience—it’s empowerment.
Faculty can teach advanced, real-time workflows without needing to overhaul their campus hardware every year. And for students, it means the ability to keep learning, creating, and rendering—even from home.
Daniel put it beautifully:
“The future of education isn’t about where you are—it’s about where you can connect. As educators, our job is to empower anyone who wants to learn and create. Cloud classrooms make that possible. They remove the limits that geography, hardware, or budgets used to impose.”
Looking Ahead
The Hawaii Unreal class proved that access to world-class creative tools shouldn’t depend on location. It should depend on passion, curiosity, and the drive to learn.
From Daniel’s all-nighter stories to watching students render their first Unreal short film from an island lab, this project reminded all of us why we do what we do—because creativity deserves connection.
As we continue expanding these cloud classrooms to new schools and programs, I’m inspired by Daniel’s words and by every educator who’s working late, dreaming big, and finding new ways to open doors for their students.
To find out more about how your school can access our VFX creative cloud check out our Virtual Studio website. https://cgvirtualstudio.com/