Google is getting into cloud-based visual effects with its Zync acquisition

Google announced on Tuesday that it has acquired cloud-based visual effects company Zync, which provided the rendering technology behind the movies Star Trek Into Darkness and Looper. Zync will be joining the Google Cloud Platform team, bolstering the company’s cloud-based offerings for creative professionals. Zync Render is an in-house tool that provides integrated image rendering for visual effects professionals, offering users flexible solutions and greater creative freedoms with decreased longterm overhead and startup costs. The rendering tool has been used by over a dozen feature films and hundreds of commercials.

Google is acquiring Zync Inc., bolstering the internet giant’s cloud-based offerings for creative professionals. Founded in 2011, the Boston-based company’s flagship product is Zync Render, a cloud-based rendering and storage platform both 2D and 3D applications. The platform consists of scalable compute, licensing, storage and data transfer features for rendering visual effects software and files within Zync’s supported host applications. On its website, Zync touts that it builds products for smaller creative teams, but some of the results might be familiar to wider audiences. Zync’s portfolio has contributed to the production of a number of Hollywood films, including American Hustle, Looper, and Star Trek: Into Darkness. Google product manager Belwadi Srikanth noted in a blog post on Tuesday morning that most studios don’t have the necessary resources for in-house rendering or compute capacity. It looks like Mountain View wants to fill this gap.