Project Achievements

'Wish' - Nov. 2023 release (Disney Animations' 100 year anniversary film)

• 'Look Dev Lead' for Crowd's
  • Established and developed the Look Dev Crowd workflow and tools for the creation of all of the human Crowd characters on 'Wish'. (Crowds appear in at least 20% of the shots, and thousands of Crowd characters appear together in some shots).
  • Worked with Software Engeneers and Pipeline TDs to implement new features using Primvars for better in-shot control of the Look of the Crowds.
    • Lead the concept and implimentation of XGen in-shot control using Primvars. (creating a new software feature that has opened up many workflow options for controlling Xgen on Crowd elements).
    • Lead the creation of new Primvar wedging tool that allows very customizable rendering of Primvar wedges.
  • Python Scripting (automating many task's, including, procedural texture creation, and various pipeline tasks)
  • SeExpr Scripting - Scripted automation allowing universal shaders to adapt to specifics of a crowd element such as ethnicity and age. This allowed the Crowd Sim team to completely Randomize the Primvar packaged Looks of all crowd characters in a shot without concern for the Look being inapropriately set for the specific ethnicity, age, or other specifics requested by Art Directors.
  • Lead other Look Dev Artist through the final assets creation.
  • Assessed the overall schedule, schedule changes, and number of available artist to scale the overall workflow to meet multiple shot department asset readiness deadlines.

'Strange World' - Nov. 2022 release

• As 'Look Dev Lead' for Crowd's:
  • Established the overall workflow, created new tools (mostly using Python, and the proprietary scripting language 'SeExpr'), and lead other Look Dev Artist.
  • Created an automated, universal, Skin shader that sets shader parameters based on the ethnicity of the model. Capable of 15 skin variations using scientific research about the reflectance of very dark skin ethnicities to very light skin ethnicities.
  • Created 'universal' shaders for the skin and clothing of the crowd characters. A set of approved final parameters in the shaders could be randomized and selected via 'primvar' attributes by downstream departments.
  • Improved efficiency, consistancy, and useability of the Crowd's Look setup.
  • Created Python scripts (using the Paint3d API) that automated the generation of procedural textures used for the 'Universal' cloth shader. This included the creation of cloth weave textures and five other textures. (Linux, command line user interface)
  • Used Houdini simulation to settle and detangle grooms while keeping the exact, original sillouette.

'Encanto' (Nov. 2021 release)

• Look Dev for the Crowd characters and B characters. Grooms, Skin, and Clothing Shaders. Python scripting for texture creation of a large number of assets.

'Raya'

• Look Dev for Characters
  The Dragon Siblings of Sisu and other B characters.

'Frozen 2'

• Look Dev for General Mattias and his Guards, the Salamander 'Bruni', and other B characters.

'MYTH - A Frozen Tale' A Virtual Reality short film (created in Unreal Engine)

• Myth is a 6 minute VR short film based on 'Frozen 2' (60fps realtime).
• Using Unreal Engine , created Look of all characters (5 humans, 4 caribou, 4 hero rock giants, 1 hero salamander, 1 hero horse).
• Created VR human characters to match the Look of 'Frozen 2' characters
• Optimization for 60fps real-time VR
• Created shaders, UV layout, textures, character VFX, character hair cards (grooms)...

'Cycles' - Virtual Reality short film

• Cyles is a virtual reality short film (60fps realtime).
• Environment (Look Dev) - (Using Unity, Substance Painter, and proprietary tools).
• Modeling, UV layout, model decimation.
• Creative solutions for optimizing the assets for 'real time' VR performance (80fps 'real time' frame rate).

'Wreck It Ralph 2'

• Environment Artist (Look Dev) - I created the environment for 'Slaughter Race' racing sequence. I also created the look for the 'Sugar Rush' racing sequence. Created textures, shaders, and XGEN procedural set dressing (ex. bushes, candy, rocks, etc.) to realize the Director and Art Director's vision for the compositions. Created an entire sequence of shots ('an environment').

'Moana'

• Environment Artist (Look Dev) - Created textures, shaders, and XGEN procedural set dressing (ex. trees, bushes, sand, rocks, seaweed, coral, etc.) to realize the Director and Art Director's vision for the compositions. Created an entire sequence of shots ('an environment'). For example, I created the Look for 'Moui's Island' that consisted of 3 sequences and 150 shots.

'Olaf's Frozen Adventure'

• Environment Artist (Look Dev) - Created textures, shaders, and XGEN procedural set dressing (ex. snow crystals, ice, rocks, trees, etc.) to realize the Director and Art Director's vision for the compositions. Created entire sequence of shots ('an environment').
• Character Artist (LOOK DEV) - textures, shaders, XGEN (for hair grooming and clothing detail).

'Zootopia'

• Main character 'Nick' the fox (Look Dev)- Was in charge of developing the Look of Nick the fox, whom was originally the main character of Zootopia, and the first character started into the production. This included; XGEN grooming and tool development, textures, shaders.

• Artist on the development team that created the first Path Traced Fur Shader at Disney animation for ‘Zootopia’. During the Look Dev of ‘Nick the Fox’, we explored what was needed to push our fur shader to the next level of realism. I worked closely with Matt Chiang (principle developer) for many months exploring different ideas for how to solve the physically based challenges of real animal fur.

• Environment Artist (Look Dev) - Created textures, shaders, and XGEN procedural set dressing (ex. using archives) to realize the Director and Art Director's vision. Usually working on an entire sequence of shots ('an environment').

'Big Hero 6'

• Vehicle Artist (Look Dev)- Created Python scripts that proceduralized the simultanious creation, maintanance, and in shot modification of all vehicles. With these scripts, I was able to; create textures, make shader adjustmenst, and do pipeline tasks such as rendering and publishing on all elements simultaniously.
• Environment Artist (Look Dev) - Created textures, shaders, and XGEN procedural set dressing (ex. using archives) to realize the Director and Art Director's vision. Usually working on an entire sequence of shots ('an environment').

'Frozen'

• Character Artist (Look Dev)- Created textures, shaders, and procedurals to create the Look and variants of Kristoff, and King Troll 'Pappy'. Groomed the hair for the main characters Anna, and Kristoff (XGEN).
• Environment Artist (Look Dev) - Created the 'Enchanted Valley' set. Created textures, shaders, and XGEN procedural set dressing (ex. using archives) to realize the Director and Art Director's vision. Usually working on an entire sequence of shots ('an environment').

'Wreck-It Ralph'

• Environment Artist (Look Dev) - Created environments 'Sugar Rush', Vanellope home and training track. Procedural set dressing (XGEN, textures, shaders).
• Character Artis (Look Dev)- hair grooming (XGEN). Scripted a technique that created a more natural looking groom. Created the look of all of the 'Nicelander' characters.

'Tangled'

• Character Artist (Look Dev)- Created Look for entire main character 'FLYNN' and 'Maximus' the horse, among others.
• Developed Disney Animations first principled hair shader. (specifically for Blonde hair)
• Developed a new work flow to sculpt hair using geometry ('hair volumes') rendered as XGEN curves. This workflow changed the direction of hair grooming at Disney Animation.