research
interests
- character rigging -
biomechanics -
muscle deformation - mesh dynamics - real time cloth simulation
- human and non human physiology - color theory - wayfinding -
Portfolio featured at the panel at Siggraph '08 entitled"Get the job you want."
Biography and portfolio featured in3D ARTISTmagazine (Issue 10... pgs 104-105).
This is my student demo reel from October 2004.
This is not to be considered for demo reel purposes.
This is a demonstration of what I would expect, bare minimum, from students and faculty if I am critiquing a student portfolio.
During the Dreamworks SKG Outreach Program, a person who directed one of the shorts in the company, my friend Mr. Cam Hood who I would love to work with, watched the reel and said, "you're hired." I informed another Dreamworks SKG supervisor at dinner that I wanted to make video games at the time. They are an amazing company, I would work for Jeffrey Katzenberg, and I consider myself a Dreamworks or Zynga/ Facebook investment. Jeffrey Katzenberg made a great impression on me as a student. I am a huge Mike Tyson fan and he was in charge of the "contender". Had I not gotten sick at Lucasfilm, I would have informed the President of Lucasarts that I was on good relations with that I wanted to interview for "Director of Studio Operations" at Lucasarts. I'm a lot like Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs, I will be an executive that is hands on still in the creative portion of work. When the presidency of LucasArts was vacated, I would have told Mich Chau, the President of Lucasfilm, that I would like to be considered for this role and my ideas about the studio. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg ran Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook in their twenties- if I get stuck I'd talk to Mich or George about it. I am also an investment to George Lucas. In my opinion, I can turn a major profit for him. I went through executive and leadership training at Lucasfilm and wrote Offensive Attack Strategy for the President of LucasArts at the time. I get emails from both executive recruiters as well as technical/ artistic recruiters all the time.
I would want to talk to Jeffrey Katzenberg or Mark Zuckerberg about VRML for ZYNGA/ FACEBOOK. Games on the web can be improved through virtual reality; and yes, I wrote a graduate paper on the motion cycle of Shrek. When Jeffrey Katzenberg spoke to our school, the question was asked, "Whats the most important position in a production." His response was, "The rigger/ character techncial director"; which is what I do as well- at the level of auto rigging something that could be used on Star Wars. A great experience I had was gettting to pick the brain of rigging supervisor Martin Costello. He worked at Pixar on Finding Nemo prior to DreamWorks SKG. He is who showed me how to use utility nodes. At Take 2 Interactive, due to the complexity of the rig, I was given several months to figure it out. Due to Martin's training, I picked it up in a couple of weeks, I had never used utility nodes before. I also learned a great deal about texturing from my friend Travis Price, who had worked on Spider Man 2 at Sony Imageworks prior to DreamWorks. Jeff Hayes, modeling supervisor on Shrek, gave tremendous feedback on my thesis dinosaur and helped my anatomy skills. I also got great demo reel feedback from my friend Frank Gladstone. He suggested that I texture the houses and that the griffin's wings could be potentialy too small for flight. Lighting Supervisor Bert Poole is who showed me lighting techniques in class. I would definitely work with all of them again. When I met Jeffrey Katzenberg, I shook his hand and said, "It's an honor to meet you sir." He responded with a smile saying, "Good luck." I am also an investment to Steven Spielberg. I would like to go into detail with him directly why I like God of War and the Whip Mechanics. Art Gensler said that everyone needs and older mentor and a younger mentor, I would love to be Spielberg's younger mentor in game development. I am his investment as well.
Student Short done in 10 weeks with Motion Capture- not to be considered for portfolio purposes
This is an animated short I did entitled The Creature while in graduate school in a period of 10 weeks in computer science and motion capture class. I am in the motion capture suit in this. The art direction and content are paying tribute to Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol 1. The woman in mocap is one of my friends at Pixar. The music is from Braveheart and Interview with the Vampire.
Student Classwork done in 10 weeks with Motion Capture- not to be considered for portfolio purposes
I took another motion capture class at ACCAD at Ohio State and in a ten week period did everything on this two minute student project, including the acting in the suit. The class was geared more towards a team dynamic requiring on 20 seconds of footage, but on this I wanted to work alone and see how far I could push myself as a student with the props used. I did modeling, lighting, textuing, rigging, mocap, mocap cleanup, animation, and compositing on this in my early student days at school. This is not to be considered for demo reel purposes, merely to show students what I will expect of them in terms of effort when I critique them. To do everything on a two minute piece in ten weeks is an awful lot. This is why there are points in this presentation where the animation is sloppy. I believe this was the first time I worked with motion capture without a team to assist. I used motion builder and maya to do cleanup as well as vicon cameras at ACCAD. The character is based off of the cave troll in Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Motion Capture is very fun to do and work with. I really love acting in the suit and had a blast doing this.
