“IF IT CAN BE IMAGINEd
IT CAN BE PUT ON THE SCREEN.”
- Gabriel Campisi
VISUAL EFFECTS
Filmmakers are often driven to create things that they can't even seen thats why manipulating images trough computers are used to develop those worlds inside your head.
SCAD + The Mill
passport to uncharted horizons
In Fall I got the opportunity to be in one of the most interesting classes at SCAD.
The collaborative class with The Mill was amazing, how we interacted with the mentors receiving feedback and how each group was getting better and better was amazing.
We had to develop a short video only basing it on a moving object, my team, Team Mountain chose a Tuk-Tuk, and we had a lot of fun with it.
It was a great experience overall.
My job as a compositor consisted of getting renders of the tuk-tuk and FX passes so I could blend them together as well as creating matte paintings and adding a more cinematic experience to the project. Also, I was responsible for setting up the drift shot and editing the video.
Programs used:
Houdini for lighting, FX, set dressing, and animating. Redshift for rendering
Nuke for compositing the different elements like dust FX, sets, light effects and rendering
Substance Painter for texturing, Photoshop for DMP's, After Effects for motion design, Davinci for editing
Breakdown
Maya for rigging and animating
The mentors from the Mill were great, and gave a lot of feedback that we tried each week to incorporate.
I'm thankful for the team i was in, all of them were very professional and their quality of work was amazing.
Besides the breakdown video, i have an in-depth breakdown for one of the shots that represent the work i did for the project, from Matte paintings, to set dressing and final stages of compositing.
Teammates Blogs
Dee was responsible for creating the map at the beginning, designing the logo and credits at the end, as well as creating the textures for the objects inside the tuk-tuk, and animating that scene.
Zach was responsible for creating the ring of the tuk-tuk, organizing files, and supporting us with Houdini questions, as well as generating all the dust FX through the project and animating the close-up of the wheel.
Yeona was responsible for creating the textures of the tuk-tuk as well as lighting the close-up of the wheel, and the wide shot at the end, as well as set-dressing that last shot as well.
Bouncing Egg
The project, called match to live action in classs was a fun project in which we woul create an object and place it in a scene.
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3D integration of the egg by rendering the egg, and the shadows, to then composit them in nuke afterwards.
Programs used:
Maya for modeling egg, lighting the egg and add teture features. Also used for animating
Nuke for compositing the egg in the image, color correcting and masking.
Photoshop for painting the egg texture
robot & pepsi
The Robot & Pepsi project was created to reinforce the techniques of CGI integration and 3D camera tracking.
Using props, CGI tricks, and in-camera guidance I was able to put this thirsty robot in the scene and make him look like he stole this guy's Pepsi to drink it.
Programs used:
Maya to recreate the lighting of the scene, create the textures of the robot as well as adjusting the animation from Mixamo
Nuke to combine the different render passes of the robot
as well as covering the double shadow and the juice prop can used on set and color correction
Concept class
The concept class is like a pre-production for my senior thesis. I wanted to show the three different ideas I have for the thesis in a compilation.
Emotions
With this idea i want to explore the ways I as a compositor and lighter can help the audience feel different emotions.
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But i want to add a layer of complexity by generating those emotions with a robot, that has no facial emotion whatsoever.
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Emotions like joy, being scared, nostalgia, happiness, and sadness.
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My idea is to use unreal for previz and potential rendering, as well as integrate the robots into a life action plate and do a normal render.
Perpetural Halway
With this one the idea was to have a hall way were the audience can see different environments.
I can show my skills on environment creation, compositing, and lighting.
My Oasis
This was an idea Andrea, Phirada, and I had (friends good with FX, lighting, and compositing) where we wanted to create this short music video were we would have sand floating and fancy lighting.
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There's a part that we wanted to do life action were i was going to be in charge of shooting as well as compositing.
CARVED IN STONE
How do I even start talking about this project?
Well, almost a year ago (2022) I entered a "casting" to be the VFX producer of this 5 episode series (which ended up being a short film of 30 mins) and I got the position.
After that was a rollercoaster of emotions and experiences, forming a team of great artists, organizing meetings, organizing files, and helping everybody to complete more than 100 shots of VFX.
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Gotta say thanks to the Director Porter Justus, the Producer Sean Hussey, and my fellow VFX Supervisors Andrea Rosado and Phirada Kanjanangkulpunt. for the opportunity, guidance, and friendship.
It was a great experience
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Programs used:
Houdini to do the particles, explosion and more stuff (Courtesey of Phirada Kanjanangkulpunt)
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Nuke to integrate the CG objects and particles into the different scenes and enhancing them with blooming, motion blur and color correction.
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Davinci Resolve for test composits and breakdown
How Besides being the VFX Producer I was a compositor on the project as well. Phirada and I were in charge of this whole scene of a light construct. Phirada did the particles, the explosion, and the disintegration of the rocks (rocks that we scanned on set). I integrated the particles and the rocks in the scene, enhancing it with blooming and some other camera effects.
knights fight
This was one of the craziest projects I've done. I collaborated with a friend Ethan Nasiff and using our skills we created this environment in Unreal Engine.
Ethan came out with the concept and the layout of the scene as well as the texturing of the mountains and the incorporation of the characters.
I created the landscape in GAEA and added the detailed ground, the trees, and some clouds.
Once we got our scene done we parted ways to create different camera movement, lighting and animation.
Programs used:
Davinci to incorporate the music, edit some color, and render the final movie.
Unreal to texture the environment, and place the different marketplace elements with some custom modifications, camera movement, animation, and rendering.
GAEA to generate the desired landscape with real-world messurements
The MANDALORIAN GLASS STATUE
The Mandalorian glass statue started from the idea of recreating a rock (our Pokemon) with as much fidelity as we could, but incorporating the materials and all the properties like subsurface, reflections, refractions, caustics, and color into a CG object, in this case a statue.
Programs used:
Maya to create all the different layer and passes as well as creating the textures, the lighting and the quick animation.
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NUKE for combining the different passes to create a realistic image, as well as composit the background, and color correcting.
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Davinci Resolve for test composits and for breakdown
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Programs used:
Unreal Engine 5.1 for texturing and lighting the environment. For building the foreground, ambience and clouds.
Gaea was used to create the overall landscape
Lunar
life Environment
This is one of my first builds in Unreal Engine, which we created the landscape in a program called Gaea, then we shaded it using Unreal materials for doing the colors on the background. Then we had to place quixel objects on the foreground to create it as much real as possible feeling.
Then we added the atmosphere. changed the lighting and added some camera effects like blooming.
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I had so much fun testing the engine and it was a life saver to discover the program Gaea to create the build.
Davinci Resolve for editing the sequence of exr's.
A Flame's Reach Burning Barn
A Flame's Reach is a shortfilm that is going to be released on Spring.
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This wide shot, together with some close ups made by my fellow VFX teammates created a seamless scene.
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I had to research for the fire assets and then figure out how to create a realistic feeling by adding different passes of glow in Nuke. Adding the particles and masking them, then adding the smoke and color correct it.
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Programs used:
Nuke for compositing the Flames, smoke, and particles. Also to add glow and masking the fire assets.
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Apartment interior
The apartment interior project was made using Maya and Unreal Engine, the goal of the project was to recreate three different types of lighting, interior lighting, outside lighting, and a combination of both. To develop our lighting skills and our eye for cinematography
Programs used:
Maya to create the outline of the geometry of the apartment
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Unreal Engine 5 to create the different textures, acomodate the geometry and place the different elements from the marketplace as well as lighting the enviroment and rendering.
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Davinci Resolve for test composits and color correction
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Premiere Pro to edit the breakdown
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Virtual production:
europa
Europa was the final project for my XR class, in which the whole class chose a project to work on a short film.
A story of a man looking for something valuable in Europa moon of Jupiter living living everything behind.
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The class chose an environment concept based on a concept art that me and the directors worked on, then i was in charge of adding detail to the terrain, work on the cameras to be ready for the volume, and to be in the virtual desk to make changes on set and color correcting.
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Behind the scenes:
Describe your image
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Concept:
Programs used:
Unreal Engine 5.1 for texturing and lighting the environment. For building the foreground, ambience and clouds.
Gaea was used to create the overall landscape
STAR WARS INSPO
The succulent project was modelled in maya and textured and lighted in houdini using redshif as a render. We had to texture the plant from scratch adding the colors, the details, the subsurface and the sheen.
Programs used:
Houdini for texturing and lighting the plant, for modeeling the pot and for animating the camera.
Redshift for rendering
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Maya for modelling the plant
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NUKE for color correcting
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Davinci Resolve for editing
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Alien Succulent
The succulent project was modelled in maya and textured and lighted in houdini using redshif as a render. We had to texture the plant from scratch adding the colors, the details, the subsurface and the sheen.
Programs used:
Houdini for texturing and lighting the plant, for modeeling the pot and for animating the camera.
Redshift for rendering
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Maya for modelling the plant
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NUKE for color correcting
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Davinci Resolve for editing
Floating Lanterns
The Floating Lanterns Project was done in Houdini using a particle sistem simulation with points, then i modelled the three different tipes of lanterns procedurally. Textured using redshift materials. Then i copied those lanterns randomly in the points of the simulation. Using a tool we created in class i determined how much my camera was going to see of those lanterns and limited how many lanterns were going to render.
Then i composited the background, the blur and the glowing in Nuke.
Programs used:
Houdini for modelling the lanterns, and for simulating the particles, also for texturing and lighting. Rendered in redshift.
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NUKE for color correcting, clean up and composit the background, add blur and glow.
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Davinci Resolve for test composits and for breakdown
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Apartment 51
Apartment 51 was one of my first projects for a compositing class.
I used NUKE to put the UFO in the scene, then i added the lights from the UFO, also the light casting in the floor. Also i added the bloom from the TV and the de-focus and focus animation.
Programs used:
Nuke for compositing the UFO and add light effects
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Maya for modelling and animating the UFO model
(Modelling by Justin Beck, Animation by Justin Beck and Mateo Solorzano)
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Editing, sound editing, and breakdown
Kinetic Chromeball Animation
The kinetic chromeball animation project was my last project from my Procedural animation class.
First i did the structure. The back wheel is procedurally made, then the rails were made using lines and circles to create a 3D rail. The animation was done usign a rigid body simulation for just one ball to make it go down the path, then i copied that animation a few times to have more balls rolling (something professor Deborah Fowler suggested).
The shaders for the balls and the rails were made procedurally as well using a piece of OSL code that i did in other class.
Programs used:
<OSL>
Houdini for modelling the structure, and for simulating the animation of the balls. Also for texturing and lighting. Rendered in redshift.
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NUKE for color correcting and clean up.
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OSL code for texturing the spheres, rails and wood.
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Day for Night
The day for night project consisted in taking a daylight image of a building and turn it into a night scene by changing the colors, adding lights, adding animals moving and clouds.
The deer was rotoscoped, the cloud were animated and all the factors were composed in NUKE
3D Projection
The 3D projection project consited in taking a 2D image and transform it into a 3D image that can have parallax and perspective, this was done in the 3D suit in NUKE by cutting the image and putting into cubes in 3D.
3D inegration
Programs used:
Nuke for compositing the light, the fog, the animals and color correcting and grading, also adding the 3d objects and creating the 3D projection.
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Maya for consolitating the plane of the point cloud and change the size of the objects for the 3D integration
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Editing, sound editing, and breakdown
The 3D integration project consisted in adding a 3D object in a scene. This was done in NUKE taking the information of a point cloud and adding a plane based on that point cloud in order to place the objects accurately on top of that plane.
Viruses Floating
This is my virus project for one of my classes, i had a lot of fun doing this project.
The shapes were done procedurally in houdini and were shaded using just colors, then the shadows of each object was done using an OSL shader code technique that creates a shadow based on the proximity of the objects.
Programs used:
Houdini for modelling viruses, and texturing them using OSL code
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Davinci Resolve for compositing the background and color correct the project
<OSL>
OSL code for texturing and faking the light using exclusion
Complex Scene
The complex scene project consisted in combining all of our texturing projects in one. The plant and the metal objects were modelled in Maya, all the other aspects were done in houdini. The metal and the wood shader were done using OSL code, so i created a procedural texture that i can change every aspect of it with sliders.
Programs used:
<OSL>
Houdini for modelling the ropes, the room and the wood floating tables. Textured with OSL and lighted using redshift lights
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NUKE for color correcting
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Maya for modelling the plant and the metal objects
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OSL code for procedurally texturing the wood and the metal objects
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