T.O by Lipton

November 15, 2015

This was my first job working with Houdini, creating smoke and dust for this commercial for Lipton. Using setups from my Leads we used Houdini’s smoke solvers and advected particles to create the powdery, inky effects seen in the red and yellow shots. Here’s a “Making Of..” from Lipton, too.

SSE: Solid Angle Interview

March 7, 2015

My Lead on this job, Alex, has been interviewed by Solid Angle about our use of their Arnold renderer on this ad. Find it here: https://www.solidangle.com/news/sse-maya/

SSE: VES Awards

February 5, 2015

We won! Three! SSE: Maya has won three awards at the VES awards. Outstanding Animated Character in a Commercial or Broadcast Program Outstanding Visual Effects in a Commercial Outstanding Compositing in a Photoreal/Live Action Commercial. http://www.themill.com/news/2015/february/5/sse-maya-wins-3-ves-awards.aspx http://deadline.com/2015/02/ves-awards-winners-2015-visual-effects-society-award-winner-list-1201366460/ Congratulations to all the people that worked on this job. I am very proud to have been a … Read More

Maya: “Unknown Nodes or Data”

January 23, 2015

I’ve just had the misfortune of trying to export a very basic model with Arnold Shaders from Maya as a .ma file. Upon trying this I get the fateful error. A solution I’ve very quickly found is this python script from Fred Lewis (http://www.movingmedia.com/python-scripts-maya/) # Unlock unknown types and delete them import maya.cmds as mc … Read More

Maya: Toggle Isolation

November 21, 2014

In Softimage I use this a lot! Hotkeyed to my NmPad3 key, I have the Isolate Selection tool. Which is great for temporarily hiding all the other stuff in your scene whilst you focus one one thing specifically. In Maya – I’ve learned, there are some scripts available out there. In a quick attempt to … Read More

Maya: Multiple Outliners

November 21, 2014

One thing I rely on heavily when using Sofitmage is the ability to use multiple explorers to navigate the scene. Inherently in Maya this functionality does not exist. However, as many of us are rapidly learning – it can be scripted. This tiny snippet will do the trick. I’ve added this to the hotkey 8 … Read More

Maya: Maths in the attribute panel

November 21, 2014

In the advent of Softimage’s demise I am, like many, having to try and migrate to other software. I’m currently, slowly, dabbling with Houdini and Maya. In an attempt to document my experiences I shall start posting some “interesting” things I find along my travels. First off I’ve sat down and watched a couple of … Read More

Currys / PC World: We Start With You

November 1, 2014

We’ve just finished up on this campaign for Currys / PC World. I worked as part of the pre-vis team, closely with the director, Chris Cairns, creating the choreography for the various motion-controlled, stop-motion and CGI appliances in order for the team on-set to understand the timings of the practical rigs and eventual composition. The … Read More

SSE: Maya

October 19, 2014

The latest job I’ve been working on has now aired.  “SSE – Maya” – ironically named as the bulk of which was made in Softimage! SSE have also uploaded a “Making Of” http://www.themill.com/work/sse-orangutan.aspx

Softimage: Renamer Tool

July 18, 2014

Here’s a renaming tool I created for use in Softimage. Downloaded here   (run it from Edit > gbRenamer)