Reel Breakdown:

1. Hexed (Walt Disney Animation Studios)

   As an effects apprentice at Disney Animation, I got to tackle a broad variety of effects on the film. Everything was done in Houdini and rendered with Hyperion, with FX comps done in Nuke.

   The magic of Hexed let me flex my creativity and come up with unique, magical effects that fit into the stylized look of the film. I got to both design effects from scratch, and create and use existing FX rigs, touching many different solvers and approaches, including 2D effects animation, to create magical poofs, liquid, goo, sparks, sparkles, and other character-specific effects integral to the story. The cartoony animation style also allowed me to hone my timing skills while deepening my understanding of the solvers and approaches I was using to enable full art direction of my simulations and effects. I love how much collaboration I was able to do with the artists around me to help bring a vast magical world to life!

   During my apprenticeship, I really honed my understanding of both animation and design principles to create effects that can help tell the story, whether a small dust poof or a dynamic hero effect!

2. “Freeing the Raven” (Disney Animation Training project)

   Creating during my time as a Walt Disney Animation Studios Trainee, this project was inspired by concept of being vulnerable and breaking down walls to reveal beauty inside. Created in Houdini and rendered with Hyperion, I got to play with many different solvers to create the layers of effects such as destruction, dust, debris, cloth, caustics, and ethereal smoke and particles. I also created a custom cracking rig to enable me to draw and custom animate cracks along the statue.

3. “Candle on the Water”

   For this shot I wanted to create something that represents hope during trying times. Despite being surrounded by water, the little candle burns on. I used Houdini and Karma to create an render this project, and had a great time diving deep into FLIP to create the ocean shore. I created a custom particle-based whitewater solver to get the intense feeling of the waves lapping up onto the bottle I was looking for. The candle was build using FLIP to give it a melted look. This project really pushed me to learn how to art direct a larger simulation by modifying things like viscosity, and custom velocity blending and fields to ensure the feeling of proper scale and intensity.

4. “Astral Ascension”

   I’ve always been captivated by the magical look of acrylic and gauche paintings, so for this shot I wanted to create that in 3D. The horse run cycle was animated in Maya, and the rest was created in Houdini and rendered with Karma. I learned working with bold color blocks, and strong shapes contributed best to the painted look I was after. In nuke, I added several Kuwhara filter layers from large to small breakup to achieve a brush-stroke finish. This project was the first time I designed something with no real-world effect to reference, and it was both challenging and fun and taught me a new way of approaching how I create effects!

5. “Little Spark” (Disney Animation Training project)

   Also created during the training program at Disney, this project was the first time I did a 2D animation test to map out my timing and goal before even opening Houdini, and it was extremely fun! Working out the timing first allowed me to dive into the technical and artistic execution of the effects without noodling over the timing and having to restart every time something was shifted. I even brought some of my 2D drawings into Houdini as sources for some of my effects to achieve a fun result with extra personality! I ended up with a more visually pleasing shot, having first built the foundation focusing only on the visual result, and not on physical accuracy.

6. “Harmony” (Disney Animation Training project)

   Also a training project, this piece was created with the idea of opposing forces, or harmony and chaos in mind. I wanted to challenge myself to push the designs of the golden harmony magic to feel beautiful and ethereal, while the red chaos magic felt frenzied and sharp. Timing was key here as I only had 100 frames to convey a state change, and I relied heavily on 2D animation beforehand to work out this timing before getting into solvers. For the liquid and splash, I was inspired by Fantasia’s arcing water movements, and ended up developing a unique approach using FLIP and custom trails to create this in 3D.

7. “Purple Flame”

   Created in Unreal Engine, I wanted to play with character effects, so using this beautiful animation, I had a wonderful time playing with Niagara in Unreal to accentuate the character animation. The real-time playback of Unreal allowed me to really dial in the timing and design of the effects, which was a really fun process!

8. “Paper and a Crayon”

   Also created in Unreal Engine, this project was inspired by my childhood spent drawing on the walls! I experimented with using sprites and flipbooks to create a painted, crayon-like explosion, and used animated textures to have the ground splat erode off as if it was being erased!

9. “Still Life”

   This shot represents the dichotomy of grieving a loss, while knowing that grief comes from unconditional love. Inspired by a painting from Daniel Conway, the tree clings to the cliff, beautiful as ever, while surrounded by lava and ash. Created entirely in Houdini and rendered with RenderMan and Karma, this project led me to build HDAs to create art directable assets, dive into USD to create a pipeline to manage a large scene, and learn how to use FLIP, Pyro, POPs, Heightfields, and SOP Solvers to create the effects needed to tell an emotional story.

10. “Emergence”

    This shot is a result of a dive into destruction! I’ve always been inspired by gothic architecture, and wanted to create a shot where instead of catastrophic destruction, the breaking symbolizes a positive event where light now streams through and warms the cold stone floors. Created in Houdini and rendered in Karma, my favorite aspects of this shot were creating custom procedural cracking on the windows, and art directing a wooden beam cracking.