Apollonia Hartmann and David Anastácio: The VFX for Salusa Secundus in Dune: Prophecy

This interview was conducted in partnership with VIEW Conference. Apollonia Hartmann and David Anastácio were featured speakers at VIEW Conference 2025 in Turin, Italy.

When you think of Dune, you think of desolate lands and sand–worlds that have remnants of rich civilizations and history. The beauty of the prequel series, Prophecy, is a visual discovery of the lushness that once was, thousands of years before the rise of Paul Atreides. The prime example is the planet Salusa Secundus that, with its bustling spaceport of its capital city Zimia, is at the center of the universe–rich and complex architecture over natural beauty that was realized by the VFX artisans of Accenture Song.

With over 400 VFX shots, Accenture created spectacular environments utilizing Croatian references while manufacturing a cityscape full of history and architectural beauty that still had a visual connection to Denis Villeneuve’s Dune films, populating the Imperial city with ships and digital crowds. “The client team, comprising VFX producer Terron Pratt, VFX supervisor Mike Enriquez, and additional VFX supervisor Brennan Prevatt, involved us very early on in the creative process–doing concept work for our shots but also blockings with the production concept assets that we received. Once we nailed the look, we then started with going into asset production,” explained VFX producer Apollonia Hartmann.

Although the concept team already had a rough idea for the highly populated city and its surroundings, it was Accenture’s turn to determine the two major camera angles for the spaceport. The final perspective allowed the audience to truly understand the richness and grandeur of Zimia while still highlighting the green hills and body of water that is so strikingly opposite of what we see in the films. Hartmann added, “For our shots it was also important to see the Imperial Palace (done by Rodeo FX) in the distance. It was something we tried in our blockings, figuring out in alignment with Mike which angle would fit the best. We did some more detailed design adjustments on our spaceport, such as a center structure, redesigned to match the practical light they had on set, which was crucial for the night scenes, and also minor details like a tower here and there.”

After concept and blocking stages, CG supervisor David Anastácio admitted that there were some concerns when using conventional approaches for such a massive amount of assets–props, buildings, vehicles, etc. “We had to rethink how we approached the whole process and simplify it by removing the UV and texturing steps, tackling the entire look development directly in Houdini,” He said. “To do that, we complemented our existing shaders with a new procedural shading system we developed, which let us create custom surface effects—the kind you’d normally build in Mari or Substance—directly inside Houdini. That meant we could push geometry straight into Houdini and straight into shots, making the whole process more efficient and cost-effective for us.” Having a strong shading background, the new procedural sharing system was incredibly rewarding for Anastácio, and “the results were better than expected, giving us a lot of flexibility in the end.”

The momentous effort earned David Anastácio and the Accenture Song VFX team a VES Award nomination for Best Environment in an Episode for Dune: Prophecy Season One Episode Two, Two Wolves. Apollonia Hartmann is immensely proud of the project, and confessed that Prophecy has allowed her to involve herself more creatively despite her role as producer: “My participation is to put together the best team possible, which was very rewarding for myself, but I had the opportunity to add my creative input into the mix. I would also like to emphasize that our work was so smooth and successful because the collaboration with Terron, Mike, and HBO was very pleasant. Our clients placed a great deal of trust in us and consistently provided helpful feedback.” All episodes of Dune: Prophecy Season One are streaming only on HBO Max.