For this series of four distinct commercials I was hired to manage a team of new lighters learning the Hydraulx pipeline. These spots directed by GoodFear followed 5 filmed football stars as they drive past all the different famous NFL stadiums and cities that we built in 3D. Our team of 8 CG artists modeled, made shaders, animated, and lit the large scenes with Mental Ray and Maya. NFL Gameday Highlights
Knight and Day – Hydraulx – Lighting and Dynamic Animation
This Tom Cruise with Cameron Diaz comedy action film turned out to be a very fun big Hollywood movie with great Visual Effects and some humor as it makes fun of Action genre. I worked on the plane crash sequence in the beginning of the film with lighting and Look Development for the airplane as it was flying as well as crashing into the corn field. Dynamic Animation here means modeling and sculpting an animated growing ground trench for the plane to crash into. Once I have the ground animated with blend shapes I constrain 1000’s or corn stalks to pivot and fly up in the air as the ground mounds up, as well as dirt and earth chunks that fly up from this same trench motion.
Jonah Hex – Hydraulx – Lighting and Look Development
For this film we had a great collection of on set Spheron HDR images that capture all the color and light details of the ship interior. They handed me the full inside gunship fighting sequence with John Malkovich and Josh Brolin and asked me to make all the shaders, do the simple animations, supervise the camera tracks, light, and final the 20 plus shots. Using the best HDR image out of the collection I created linear color workflow shaders and matched the lighting on set with roughly 30 scaled and placed area lights, which allows Mental Ray with Maya rendering to do the magic.
Lexus – Brewster Parsons – Animation/Lighting
For this job I worked with the esteemed Mathew Lamb to animate, look develop, and light 7 shots of photorealistic 3D Lexus automobiles driving over a large CG concrete area in precise, iconic, synchronized motions. We used IBL lighting from HDR images taken on set and rendered out with Mental Ray, Maya, and slap comps in Toxic.
Nike – Hydraulx – 3D Supervisor
This Nike commercial starring Adrian Peterson, and directed by David Fincher, was a big budget, artfully done, VFX sports commercial done for the NFL opening season game, and shot by the Strauss Brothers. For this project I worked as 3D lead working with a team of VFX workers to build and camera project the full football stadium, populate it with cheering fans, and apply the reptile sport skin texture to the footage of Peterson by frame accurate rotomation of this cyberscanned body.
Avatar – Hydraulx – Fluid Dynamics/Lighting
I have to admit this is a little embarrassing to post my small contribution to the film Avatar, but here it is and in the movie theater this shot was the first with strong obvious stereoscopic effect. My task was to create and animate drops of water floating and combining in zero-gravity with RealFlow, then light and render out through Maya and Mental Ray.
2012 – Hydraulx – LookDev Lighting and Effects TD
For the destruction of Hawaii sequence (5 shots) I used Maya for Look-dev, lighting, and matte-painting camera projections of the Waikiki skyline, then fluids and dynamics for adding smoke, lava, and water splashes to destroy the city.
Bedtime Stories – Hydraulx – Lighting TD/Water Dynamics
For this Adam Sandler film I worked on water simulations using Maya Fluids. Once the water dynamic motion was approved I continued to work on the shots doing water Look Development and Lighting. In addition to this I completed an environment shot as a generalist where I created Paint Effects plants and trees for the land, put in crocodiles swimming through the water, and final the lighting.
BMW – Yet – Psyop – 3D Supervisor
On this job I supervised a team of 3D artists including trackers, roto, animators, and lighters to complete a high end finely directed BMW commercial. The car was filmed in a photobubble to give perfect ambient lighting with very clean reflections. Then in 3D we built a vibrating glass road for the car to drive on, camera projected the filmed car, and comped on new reflections to make a clean graceful car driving through the sky. All work was done with Maya, Mental Ray, Boujou, Shake, and Flame.
Usher Moving Mountains – Hydraulx – 3D Lead
As 3D lead on this music video for Usher, I led a team of 3 artists making environments, lightning, rain, snow, and dynamic rocks in Maya. After animating and lighting these elements, all was rendered in Mental Ray and comped by the Flame department.