Data Deciphered: A Visual Migration of VFX is the thesis submission of my Masters Degree in Computer Graphics at Victoria University of Wellington. The project visualises the migration patterns of the visual-effects industry between 1980-2015. It achieves this through an interactive, custom application built with the Unity Engine. The project was completed under the supervision of Dr Leon Gurevitch and contributed to his larger body of research: The Digital Workshops of the World. Abstract: The visual effects industry is an interconnected network of migratory professionals that is in an on-going state of dynamism. The transient nature of industry contracts and the resultant economic impact of studio ebb and flow is a largely uncharted, yet highly phenomenological subject, within design discourse. In the absence of a reliable metric to quantify employee migration, previous theories in this field have been speculative and conjectural. However, the wealth of data inherent in employment-oriented social-media profiles and online crowd-sourced databases provides a new way in which to identify and analyse collective trends in industry migration. Data Deciphered: A Visual Migration of VFX reveals the geographical and demographic patterns in the postproduction services industry through the data visualization medium. Furthermore, it investigates the optimal way to comprehend, filter and relate the large volume of information that is the sector’s migration patterns. This thesis first amassed a dataset of 82,711 migratory employment records specific to professionals within the visual effects industry over the previous 35 years. It drew this information from the public-facing pages of both the LinkedIn and Internet Movie Database (IMDB) online Internet platforms. This collection has been subsequently used to drive a 3D visualization tool that was constructed within the Unity5 game engine. This study has revealed that, despite claims to the contrary, California continues to function as the central hub of the visual effects world and that the majority of industry professionals have been located there at some point throughout their employment histories. Furthermore, environment and matte-painting roles have been identified as the most migratory, while technician and code professions tend to be more static. Finally, skills analysis demonstrates that while proficiency in software packages and coding languages is prevalent within the industry, ultimately, the possession of these abilities has negligible impact upon migration frequency.