3D Lighting Artist and Generalist
Lakewarden
Fall 2023. Senior Vertical Studio at Texas A&M University Visualization
Lakewarden is my senior animated short film for Texas A&M Visualization Vertical Studio, created with a team of eight others over the course of one semester. As this was my final studio course, in addition to my lead and auxiliary roles, I took on project management responsibilities alongside two other co-project managers. Though I had limited experience with Unreal Engine prior to the project, I ended up becoming thoroughly proficient in the program throughout development. Guiding a large team to ensure the short's success was a task that demanded significant time, organization, research, and no shortage of sheer passion devoted to the project. In addition to project management, I took on the role of lighting lead and developed a global lighting setup along with two shot-specific setups. I created the realistic murky underwater look and utilized value / contrast to direct viewers towards the robot and minnow. Lastly, I was also responsible for the algae VFX on the robot, rigging the robot's arm, assistance with rendering, some layout concept art, and tertiary lookdev/surfacing.
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Lakewarden was showcased at Viz-a-Gogo (2024) placing Runner Up in Best Time-Based Media, Brazosport Arts in Media Festival (2024), and Visualization Fall Show (2023).
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Roles: Project Management​​ (Lead), Lighting (Lead), Pipeline (Lead)​, VFX, rigging, rendering, concept art, tertiary asset surfacing
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Software Used: Unreal Engine 5, Autodesk Maya, Houdini, Adobe Substance Painter, Adobe Premiere
Lighting
For the lighting, I developed a global lighting setup along with two shot-specific setups. Extensive visual research was conducted to realistically capture the murky appearance of dirty ponds and lakebeds. I aimed for a realistic underwater look while also artistically drawing the viewer's attention to the robot and minnow, creating an appealing composition with a wide range of values and contrast.
I received lighting guidance from Myriah Higgins, lighting artist at Bluepoint Games, throughout the project.
Algae VFX
A major technical hurdle I was tasked with was to create a procedural algae tool that could scatter algae on the robot's body and hand. I created a procedural algae tool for the robot's body and arm using Houdini. The tool includes a point scatter system instancing a simplistic plant mesh around masked areas of the robot, which could then intake animation data to move the algae along with the arm.
Rigging
I created the rig for the robot's arm with a joint system + control system setup, including an IK/FK switch on the elbow. (FK version shown.) The joint, control, and IK/FK switch systems were all created from scratch and optimized to easily achieve proper robotic animation.
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My main challenge was to weight paint a mechanical object, as my previous rigging experience was an organic animal character. Rigging the robot arm required rigid machine movements and weight painting that only bends on the joint hinges. On this robot, I focused on making the rig as mechanical and binary as possible.
