Portfolio

AOA Access – Intro Title Sequence

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For Solutions by Design, I created this introduction animation for one of their video productions. Everything start to finish was about 2 weeks. I used Maya, and After Effects for all post work. I also added the music and sound effects.

Client: AOA Access
Production company: Solutions by Design
Original Concept: Solutions by Design
All Post work by: Sateesh Malla
Music: premiumbeat.com

Orthia – VTOL – Thesis opening shot

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This is the opening shot for my thesis. The full version will be released soon.

The hovercraft (drone machine) was modeled in Maya, textured and lit with Renderman. The background matte painting was done in Photoshop and Nuke. The foreground trees are paint effects in Maya. The final composite was all done using Nuke and some minor fixes in AE.

Tools Used:
Photoshop, Maya, Renderman, Nuke, After Effects

Orthia – Wall Blast Simulation

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This is another shot from my thesis – A projectile crashes into the wall leaving a gaping hole with smoke billowing outward.

The brief first part of the shot was done by Chris Messineo, with whom I collaborated with on the thesis.

All of the compositing was done in After Effects. The effects are a combination of live action elements and CG elements. The wall was shattered using a plugin in Maya called Shatter Plus (the best one I’ve used so far). I used another tool that parents the shattered pieces onto particles at the center of each fragment. I wrote some particle expressions to control the behavior to simulate Rigid Bodies. I also created a couple passes of billowing smoke in Houdini.

Tools Used:
Maya, Houdini, After Effects

Orthia – Wrist POV shot

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This is a shot from my thesis – Orthia, the main character is looking through her Heads Up Display, checking vital stats and the location of a technical device. All of the compositing was done in After Effects. The tracking was done in Maya with the built in tool maya live.

Tools Used:
Maya, Live, After Effects

3D Text shatter – Title Sequence Animation

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The 3d text model was fractured using the shatter plus plugin for Maya (it only works in 32-bit). Then I wrote some python to animate the pieces to fly inwards and come back together. Final Composite in After Effects. I also used trapcode form at the end.

Tools Used:
Maya, After Effects

I had some requests for the script that I used to create the animation for the pre-fractured pieces. Here is the python code to do this in Maya. Copy and paste this into the script editor:

import maya.cmds as cmds
import random

foo = cmds.ls ('polySurface*')
print (foo)


for i in foo:

	xRand = random.uniform(-50,50)
	yRand = random.uniform(-50,50)
	zRand = random.uniform(-50,50)

	cmds.xform(i, ws=True, r=True, t=(xRand  ,yRand  ,zRand ), ro=(xRand*10  , yRand*10  , zRand*10  ))
	
	cmds.setKeyframe (i, t='1.0')


for i in foo:

	xRand = random.uniform(-10,10)
	yRand = random.uniform(-10,10)
	zRand = random.uniform(-10,10)

	cmds.xform(i, ws=True, t=(0,0,0), ro=(xRand*5, yRand*5, zRand*5))
	cmds.setKeyframe (i, t='50.0')

for i in foo:

	cmds.xform(i, ws=True, ro=(0,0,0))
	cmds.setKeyframe (i, t='60.0')
}

Particle Ink – Title Sequence simulation

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This was created by emitting a massive number of particles from a texture. Then I used a 3d fluid to push the particles upward – a bit like ink in water, but reversed. Final composite in After Effects. Additional motion blur using rsmb plugin which works really well.

This is actually an intro for my final thesis project called Orthia which will be released later this year.

Tools Used:
Maya, After Effects

Renderman City Nighttime

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The model of the city was provided and the shading, lighting, and textures were all done procedurally with renderman. This is a nighttime rendition of the scene.

Tools Used:
Maya, Renderman, After Effects

Renderman City Daytime

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The model of the city was provided and the shading, lighting, and textures were all done procedurally with renderman. This is a daytime rendition of the scene.

Tools Used:
Maya, Renderman, After Effects

Hulk – wall blast simulation

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This scene is a recreation of a segment from the first Hulk movie trailer. The simulation was done with Maya with particle expressions and some rigid bodies. The main crack on the house was animated manually, along with some of the pieces inside the house flying out.

Tools Used:
Maya, Nuke

UFO shot breakdown

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…and the breakdown of the UFO shot.

After scouting the streets of San Francisco, I finally found a building that had a top shaped like a UFO or saucer. I immediately filmed the background plate in San Francisco downtown, around kearny and post st. It was right at the twilight hour so I was able to get some nice lighting and highlights at least at the top of the buildings. I tracked the entire scene using PFTrack, which took a bit of time actually. Then I brought everything back into Maya and modeled, textured, lit, and animated the UFO. The final composite was done in Shake. I touched up a few frames with photoshop and after effects.

Tools Used:
PF Track, Maya, Shake, After Effects, Photoshop

UFO in San Francisco

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I was walking around San Francisco when I spotted something strange on top of a building. A circular disk shaped object spinning slowly atop a building. Wow! A UFO hiding there all this time!! A bunch of people saw this too as evidenced by the commentaries on my video.

Fascinated by UFO stories in the sky, I wanted to take a different stab at it – that is, UFOs hiding among us. After scouting the streets of San Francisco, I finally found a building that had a top shaped like a UFO or saucer. I immediately filmed the background plate in San Francisco downtown, around kearny and post st. It was right at the twilight hour so I was able to get some nice lighting and highlights at least at the top of the buildings. I tracked the entire scene using PFTrack, which took a bit of time actually. Then I brought everything back into Maya and modeled, textured, lit, and animated the UFO. The final composite was done in Shake. I touched up a few frames with photoshop and after effects.

Tools Used:
PF Track, Maya, Shake, After Effects, Photoshop, Logic Pro

TV Robot

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This was a collaborative texture project. I worked on the textures on the TV and some of the grunge textures on the body.

Tools Used:
Maya, Modo, UV Layout

HP Wirelessly

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This was a collaborative project with students from motion picture television in our school, along with my vfx class. It was actually a commercial for a contest that HP had a few years ago called HP Wirelessly, promoting their wireless printers at the time. I don’t have the audio on this version, but it probably was added later on. I worked on the bird animations and the matchlighting of the 3d printer.

Tools Used:
After Effects, Particular, Maya

Bee Swarm

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Screenshots:

A simulation of a bee swarm – all done using Houdini particles. The background plate is just an image. Final camera shake and composite in AE.

Tools Used:
Houdini, After Effects