I’ve curated my projects into categories that spotlight different visual effects skills. A project is placed within a particular category when it prominently showcases a specific skill. However, it’s important to note that these skills often overlap and interconnect.
FX Simulation
Project created utlizing Houdini to create FX Simulations.
Nitro – April 2024
Breakdown: link
This was a multi-layed FX shot created for the “Riders” project that includes lightning sims, particle sims, and a rigid body sim. The textures on the Nitro canister are completely procedural.
This project was modeled in Maya, with Simulations created in Houdini and rendered in Arnold.
IED Explosion on Science Fiction Vehicle – May 2024
Render and Breakdown: link
EMP Deactivating Missile – May 2024
Render and Breakdown: link
Car Chase – May 2024
Render: link
Procedural Modeling and Animation
Projects made using procedural animation techniques in order to improve the efficiency of completing common CG tasks.
Building Block Buster – June 2023
Render: link
I have been learning Ridid Body Simulations in Houdini recently by reading the documentation and following along with Steven Knipping’s Applied Houdini series, and it has been a ton of fun.
I wanted to do a project where I could put what I learned into practice, so I conceptualized the idea of a toy catapult flinging a baseball at a tower of building blocks. I think the result speaks for itself! It’s always a joy to watch building blocks collapse.
Orrery – April 2023
Render: link
An ‘orrery’ is a mechanical model of the Solar System that illustrates or predicts the relative positions and motions of the planets and moons [wikipedia].
I have always wanted to build one of these, but lacked the resources and mechanical expertise to assemble one in the real world. In Houdini I created a procedural gear system that sped up my process of modeling this device tenfold! The gears turning animation is automatically adjusted with to adust for the number of teeth in both gears.
Procedural Building Tools – February 2024
Documentation: link
In this project I created procedural workflows that optimized the creation of buildings. I was able to accomplish this by utilzing procedural nodes, hscript, and VEX. In the future I might expand upon this tool to add destruction.
Linear Modeling
Models created using a linear model workflow in Maya.
Blind Rider – February 2024
Render: link
This was a vehicle that I modeled in Maya for the project “Riders”. This specfically is the vehicle of “Blind-Rider”, a drag race-car driver who only needs to drive straight. It was fun to model and I am glad the reception to the design has been so positive.
The look-dev rig and textures were provided by Ethan Nasiff
Joy Rider – February 2024
Render: link
This was a vehicle that I modeled in Maya for the project “Riders”. This specfically is the vehicle of “Joy-Rider”, the race fixing queen of the criminal underworld. I initially based the car off the 1967 Alfa Romeo and then added some cool sci-fi elements to make it stand out.
Look-Dev rig provided by Ethan Nasiff
Procedural textures provided by Shea Crowley
Procedural Shadings
Projects made using procedural shading techniques which can be more flexible than a linear shading workflow.
Gardener Scene – November 2023
Render: link
For this project I combined some of my early procedural shading projects into a larger project. I added more elements like a vellum grain sim and a procedural wood plank texture.
Brain Synapses – October 2023
Render: link
This project was created using OSL and Houdini in order to showcase Brain Synapses. The image is meant to replicate lighting scenarios similar to those found under and electron microscope.
OSL Source Code
Procedural Rust Shader – October 2023
Documentation: link
This is a procedural rust shader I created in Houdini and OSL. This procedural texture can be utilized in order to apply rust to any object and customize parameters to achieve a specific look easier.
Terracotta Pot – September 2023
This is a procedural terracotta pot made completely with procedural shaders including on the plants and the rocks.
Python
Projects created with an emphasis on utilizing the programming language Python.
Newton’s Cradle – May 2023
Render and Documentation: link
This model was created in Maya and Python 100% in code. ALl you would need to do is run the code in the Maya terminal to generate a cardboard Newton’s cradle with marbles. You can even increase and decrease the number of marbles.
source code
Georgia Election Map – April 2023
Georgia Election map was a project I created in Python and Maya that took the results of the 2016 presidential election map and increased the scale of the individual election regions depending on the population of voters and shifted the color of the election map to blend between red and blue for the number of people who voted for either the Republican and Democrat party’s candidate. The project also works in Houdini.
Maya Source Code Houdini Source Code
Quilty – April 2023
Documentation: link
This was a fun program that I created in python to generate quilt patterns and explore creating user interfaces within Python.
Should run if you download all the .py files and run the python script using an IDE like Visual Studio.
Digital Synthesizer- March 2023
Demo: link
This was a fun project I did last year over my spring break to refresh myself on how to use Python before my VFX programming class.