Superstitious
5-minute Animated Short Film - Contributed as Rigging and Environment Lead
My main roles were as lead for the environment and rigging in the film. I set dressed the entire interior store and set up scene files for animating and rendering. I designed and produced the character rig for the main character "Ailbhe" and worked on constantly updating the cat quadruped rig. I also worked on producing an array of prop rigs, and animations. Additionally, I managed the integration of Houdini grooms, simulations, and special effects. Lastly, I contributed Nuke composites to our final edit.
Character Rig
Maya, Renderman, Houdini, Nuke
Attributes: fully scalable fk and ik body rig, local face rig with blendshapes, Houdini simulated skirt, Mgear spring rigged butterfly wings, Xgen hair groom and rig
Rig Capabilities
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The necklace prop had two different rigs. One prop was designed to connect to the character. The additional rig was dynamic and made to stand alone.
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Xgen hair was incorporated into this character's final design through a rig that I created in Maya.
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A proxy rigged skirt was used throughout the animation process. For the final render, the proxy skirt was replaced by a simulated skirt for each scene that I created in Houdini.
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I created corrective blendshapes for her shoulders, wrists, and legs using a Maya plug-in called "SHAPES".
Animations & Compositing
Maya, Renderman, Houdini, Nuke
Here is a portion of my contribution to the film's animated and composited shots. We utilized Sequencer inside of Maya and Nuke for compositing. Simulations were added to sequences in Maya for rendering and compositing involved adjusting lighting and adding vfx.
Environment
Maya, Renderman, Nuke
Shown to below are interior renders of the main setting for the short film. Items were imported and arranged in a maximalist style. I used scripts to easily repeat instancing commands and added a pixar color variation map to the duplicated items' texture settings.
The Thread Between Us
2.5 - minute Animated Short Film - Contributed as Project Lead and as a Technical Artist
As one of the project leads for this production, I managed 3D artists, technical artists, and animators. In addition to creating schedules, assigning tasks, and creating bi-weekly presentations, I created the character rig for Sol and the face rigs and hair simulations for both main characters (Sol and Luna). I also art directed the shaders in engine for the hair, characters, and environment. Additionally, I made simple rigs for the barista and other background customer characters. Lastly, I directed lighting and camera inside subsequences.
This production was made during the summer semester of my master's degree program at the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy.