Montreal’s newest visual effects company officially opened its doors on Monday, as founders Sebastien Moreau and Mathieu Raynault cut the ribbon at Rodeo FX.

The opening marks a homecoming for Moreau, who started his visual effects career in 1993 as an editor and digital compositor for a series of small Montreal companies before moving on to Industrial Light and Magic — where he was an Inferno compositor on more than 25 films, including the Star Wars prequels, the last two Pirates of the Caribbean movies and War of the Worlds — and for Weta Digital as an Inferno artist on The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

‘It was an opportunity to come back home and start my own business — which I’ve always wanted to do — and to participate in Quebec’s growing visual effects industry,’ says Moreau.

The company has five full-time staffers, using software including XSI and Shake, and plans to specialize in matte painting and providing smaller productions with low-cost but quality special effects, according to Moreau. Much of Raynault’s career has involved matte painting, or creating virtual sets and digital backlots. His matte painting work is featured in King Kong, The Matrix and The Lord of the Rings.

So far, Rodeo FX has done 40 visual effects shots for the Alain Desrochers-helmed Quebec movie Nitro, which is due out this summer, and some commercial work.