Houdini tool for generating spherical normals and pre-baked AO for foliage. Left is a tree with default normals – right is one with spherical normals. Was used on Avatar:TLA, primarily in the palace environments.
Spherical Normals 1
Category: labelled_image
VAT Wind
A relatively complex tool to take a tree without a pre-built skeleton, and automatically rig it with curves for wind simulation. The result was encoded as a texture using SideFX’s VAT tools, and used in several projects in Unreal. The limit for this workflow is about 300,000 tris, but the result is very render efficient.
Bounding box matching
The tool then uses a ‘best fit’ box matching algorithm to assign the most appropriate module from a library. The modules don’t have to follow a set grid, or a set scale, so it’s easy to mix and match from different modular packs with minimal manual setup.
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City render 2
The building system has not yet been used for a final production layout, but has proved very useful for rapid prototyping and visual development. Further development is ongoing.
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Circus Maximus Ref
The Unreal Environment had to match both the physical set build, and the VFX set extension work done by ReDefine, which really pushed the capabilities of UE5.
Colosseum crowds 1
More than 100 extras were recorded at Dimension’s volumetric capture studio, from which 24 looping sequences were created. These were baked to a set of flipbooks, including world normal and depth information. The result was a lightweight crowd setup that would still react to lighting changes, as well shadow correctly.
Neanderthal Settlement
There aren’t too many ‘behind the scenes’ images of another significant chunk of my work – the Neanderthal Settlement in Ep. 7. This re-used all the snow techniques developed for ‘Snowy Plain’, as well as Houdini simulated snow buildup created by myself and Lukas Schwarzer.
Jungle 3
Most of the vegetation was sourced from the library of jungle plants used on ‘The Lion King’ the year before – but was missing mid-scale elements. I therefore created a set of tree fern assets in PlantFactory, and textured them in Substance, with the assistance of Jeffrey Scott.
Appa 1
The on-set backgrounds for the Appa flying sequences were created by Mold3D and Bunker. True volumetrics were too expensive to render in realtime (this was UE 4.27), so the system was sprite based. There’s some more information on the 4-point lighting setup in the ‘techart‘ section. All backgrounds replaced in post.
Agna Qela throne room
Texture, shading and lighting on Agna Qel’a throne room environment. Supervision by myself and Andrew Budyk, build by Dimension Studios.
Diorama explanation 1
Diorama is an environment layout and set dressing toolset built on top of Unity, and integrated into MPC’s Genesis platform. I designed the tool specifications, and acted as product owner. All software development was done by John Vanderbeck.
Diorama WIP
Mid way through the layout demo (approx. 2 mins of work)
Houdini water 1
Houdini ocean test. I found it’s possible to bake 10.6 secs of a Houdini ocean sim to an 8k flipbook as vector displacement data. The texture is huge, but since it’s only sampled once, is extremely fast.
Realtime showroom
Interactive showroom concept for a clothing label. A lot of emphasis was put on accurate fabric representation in VR.
Realtime runway
This ‘virtual runway’ was a project to really push my skills with Substance Designer. Everything, including the animated raindrops, was textured using the tool.
Realtime RDT
Like a lot of artists, I was very impressed with ‘Real Displacement Textures’ when they were first released. This is an experiment on how I could replicate something similar results on my own kit.
JL Plants
The final shots of the movie required the city to be covered in ‘beautiful alien plants’. I created four plant types in ‘Plantfactory’, which were animated by Andrew Bain.
MPC Dark Tower
The Dark Tower – 2018
I created a library of textures for the titular ‘Dark Tower’ which were used in a ‘texturebombing’ shader by Tim Crowson. The background sky is a matte painting by Matt Ellis, based on photos I took in the South Pacific.
The landscape was a ‘2am’ shot, created in less than 24hrs alongside Michael Gardiner and Eduardo Lopez. It never made the final cut…
Concepts temple 2
Vehicle design in SketchUp. The tool is not an organic modeler, nor an animation tool – but it is surprising how far it can be pushed. The characters are rigged and posed entirely within SketchUp itself.
Concept Scylla 1
‘Scylla Attacks the Odyssey’. Entry to the CGSociety challenge ‘Steampunk Myths and Legends’.
Concepts Scylla 3
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Sketchup models constructed for ‘Steampunk Myths and Legends’. Was published in ‘Creer avec SketchUp’, a french-language book that showcased the different uses of SketchUp in various industries.
Concept town square
Town square checkpoint. Done for an art test that subsequently turned out to be a scam (sigh), but it produced a painting I’m quite happy with.
Leap Year Park
Boston Park
Despite the entire opening sequence being a relatively uneventful Boston commute, neither the crew nor Amy Adams (the lead) ever went there. All the backgrounds are digital, and most required the addition of slushy snow.
MPC – Monster Trucks
Monster Trucks – 2015
I didn’t have a lot of involvement with this show until the very end. As is often the case for a HoD, I got involved with some of the ‘stragglers’ – the problematic shots that hang around at the end of the show, or the shots that have large, last minute notes.
Neverland forest gorge 2
One of many forest interior matte paintings, based on Vue renders
Neverland white wood water
Another matte painting of the ‘White Wood’. In all the concept art, the tops of the trees were never seen (even in the distance), which wasn’t practical in this shot. Tree renders done in ‘Vue’.
Neverland forest
Concept and DMP for the forest in the opening sequence
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Sanctuary skyline 3
London Skyline reverse angle. I didn’t realise how defocused the final shot was going to be, and put in a ton of detail that was never seen. Base building geometry by Remo Weiland.
Sanctuary graveyard
Graveyard DMP for Will’s vision in Episode 6.
Triffids battle
Concept for the Triffid battle in parliament square
Triffid orchard
Concept for the Triffid ‘Orchard’. Based on initial artwork by the art director, Dan May. I wrote a script for SketchUp to transfer cameras into Vue, so the camera lineup could be done using SketchUp’s camera match feature, and the final renders could be done with Vue.
Tornado aftermath 2
Second ‘Tornado aftermath’ matte painting. Classic (read: cheesy) backlit DMP sunset.
Tornado aftermath 1
Tornado aftermath – corn field and sky extension.
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Fish Eye Matte Painting
‘Fish Eye’ matte painting. Used as background for almost every poster, affiliate marketing material and website. Probably the most widely visible painting I’ve ever done.