Project History

An historical log of the various projects I've contributed to.. it's not entirely complete.


CG/VR Supervisor – Multiple Projects
Milk Vfx • 2016-2017

Was initially brought on to supervise a film project but due to production timetables shifted to setting up the VR services at Milk and supervised their first few projects. These were;

Tree

Dinosaurs In The Wild

In house content custom built for major clients as demos (NDA)

While doing the above projects I developed a number of tools for the overall VR pipelines and developed a set of procedures scaled to the facility size for transfer of assets from the standard pipe to realtime representations in Unity and Unreal.


Pineapple with Pizza (And Why You’re Probably Doing It Wrong)
•

So you may have heard people say ‘fruit doesn’t belong on pizza’ .. those people would be wrong..

You may be thinking to yourself .. ‘hmm well I’ve tried Hawaiian and it was disgusting!’ .. and you’d be right..

Pineapple is actually quite delicious on a pizza, the problem like many things in cooking, is about balance.


Lead R&D Engineer – Site Rendering Technology
Double Negative • 2013-2016

Was the lead (and primarily sole) developer for all Houdini lighting and shading at the company for the last two and a half years.

  • Part of core R&D department working on rendering technology, shader library development and artist tools for Houdini and Mantra for use on all shows.
  • Wrote and maintained all of the light rig and light transfer API and tools for all packages (Maya, Houdini etc) and all light shaders, tools and in-scene gizmos for Houdini lighting.
  • Mentored a number of supervisors and leads in various workflows and techniques for general lighting and shading pipelines and fx work (primarily fluids).
  • Consulted and advised on the site HDR pipeline.
  • Developed a complete shading framework for Houdini for use across all shows called ‘Cuttlefish’, comprised of a full set of cross package compatible matching materials, supporting VOP node library, two APIs, large python toolset and VOPfx menus.
  • Developed a lightweight framework for managing configuration and general data at a site/show/user level (integrated into Cuttlefish).
  • Developed a masking system for context and package consistent 2d/3d interchange and operations.
  • Wrote multiple customised versions of the Mantra pathtracer for use on shows (Interstellar and Heart Of The Sea) and one for in house default use for all rendering with a number of added features.

Cuttlefish and previous incarnations of the materials, shading and lighting tools are used across Dneg for all shows as the standard toolset, current ‘uncredited’ usage includes :

  • Captain America : Civil War
  • Fantastic Beats And Where To Find Them
  • Alice Through The Looking Glass
  • Geostorm
  • Batman Vs Superman
  • Spectre
  • Ex Machina

Also provided full R&D support for all Houdini lighting and shading for all facilities at the company on top of the development work schedule.