Domenick Simpson - TriAxis Animation & Design · April 2012 - March 2013 (12 months, Sydney,...

Domenick SimpsonCV & Showreel Breakdown, October 2013

P: 2/12M: +61 412 025 054 E: [email protected]

AboutAfter completing a Bachelor of Information Technology at Bond, I was employed by the university as a Multimedia tutor. During this time, I pursued a career in design and 3D by founding and operating my own design and animation business, TriAxis (www.TriAxis.com.au).

Since 2002, TriAxis has serviced a broad client list including the Bose Corporation, Gold Coast City Council, Sydney Hi-Fi Castle Hill, N.S.W. Government Attorney General & Justice, Who Bathroom and more recently SMART Inc, part of the McCann Advertising WorldGroup.

Between 2004 & 2009 I was employed by worldwide audio company Bose, where I progressed from Graphic Designer & 3D Artist to become Creative Supervisor of the Bose Asia Pacific Region’s Creative Team. During this time I was appointed as one of three worldwide Bose Creative Brand Specialists which led to fantastic opportunities.

Since watching Jurassic Park at age 13, my goal was to one day work in the Visual FX & Animated Film industry.

In 2009 I accepted a contract as a 3D Digital Lighting Artist at Australia’s premier production house ‘Animal Logic’ in Sydney. I worked on Zac Snyder’s cinema releases ‘Sucker Punch’ and ‘Legend Of The Guardians’.

Shortly following ‘Guardians’, I signed at Dr.D Studios and was promoted to Lighting Technical Director, working as a sequence key-lighter on George Miller’s ‘Happy Feet Two’.

This was my first time key-lighting on a major cinema release and I learnt a great deal about setting up light rigs which would be shared within a team of 10-12 lighting artists. I also gained valuable experience adding all of the appropriate documentation on Wiki pages for team members to quickly and easily adapt using a new light rig (which was met with great success).

In early 2012, I returned to Animal Logic in Sydney working on Coke’s TV commercial for the XLVI Super Bowl ‘Polar Bowl’, watched by over 114 million viewers. Shortly after, in March I was employed to work on Baz Luhrmann’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ feature film. During this time I was also fortunate enough to work on Coke’s short film, ‘The Polar Bears’ (produced by Ridley Scott) and ‘Puffin’, another Coke commercial.

Currently, I work as a CG artist (Lighting TD), on The Lego Movie at Animal Logic, specialising in digital lighting & rendering.

With a background in the areas of photorealistic product visualisation, image editing and graphic design, my skillset is quite unique and diverse. I continue to take pride in my dedication and attention to detail in every project. I always aim to expand and enhance my current skillset over the new projects I take on and strive for creative excellence in all that I do.

IndexAbout

Rough outline of career.

Film Page 3

Filmography (list of feature films I have worked on).

Commercials Page 4

List of commercials I have participated in creating.

Design Page 5

Companies I have worked for in graphic design & visualisation.

Other Page 6

Various companies in design, multimedia and 3D.

Education Page 7

Degree & course information.

Breakdown Page 8

Current showreel breakdown, showreel link on www.domenicksimpson.com


FilmDigital Artist - Lighting (The Lego Movie)Animal Logic (201-500 employees; Motion Pictures & Film Industry)March 2013 - December 2013 (10 months, Sydney, Australia)

Appointed as sequence key-lighter across various scenes. Worked amongst 3 teams of 12 artists using a physically-based lighting pipeline. Played an active part in the artistic process in accordance with scene specific requirements of the Art Director, Lighting Lead and Supervisor.

Digital Artist - Lighting (The Great Gatsby)Animal Logic (201-500 employees; Motion Pictures & Film Industry)April 2012 - March 2013 (12 months, Sydney, Australia)

Key-lighting and shot-lighting multiple film sequences across the production, liaising with the lighting lead to produce physically-correct digital light setups and HDRI maps. Worked as part of a team of 16 artists, compositing ‘temp comps’ which were later passed to the compositing division.

Lighting TD (Happy Feet Two) Dr. D Studios (201-500 employees; Motion Pictures & Film Industry)March 2011 - November 2011 (9 months, Sydney, Australia)

Assigned task of key-lighter for the ‘Erik opera’ sequence, also performing regular shot-lighting tasks across numerous sequences. Participated as part of a large lighting team (6 teams of 12 artists), compositing the majority of these lighting final shots shown in the final cinema release.

Digital Artist - Lighting (Sucker Punch)Animal Logic (201-500 employees; Motion Pictures & Film Industry)February 2010 - July 2010 (6 months, Sydney, Australia)

First film release, performing both key-light and shot-lighting responsibilities, working heavily on catapult, end courtyard & dragon shots. Participated as part of a small team of 12 artists, modifying setups in accordance with the CG Supervisor & lighting lead’s feedback.

Digital Artist - Lighting (Legend Of The Guardians)Animal Logic (201-500 employees; Motion Pictures & Film Industry)July 2010 - August 2010 (4 weeks, Sydney, Australia)

Contributed as a shot-lighting artist, modifying digital lighting setups for the beginning ‘family life’ sequence of the film. Worked as part of a large lighting team (4 teams of 12 artists), compositing individual shots for final review and approval as seen in the final theatrical release.


CommercialsDigital Artist - Lighting (Puffin Coke TVC) Animal Logic (201-500 employees; Motion Pictures & Film Industry)November 2012 - November 2012 (2 weeks, Sydney, Australia)

Developed the lighting ‘look’ and balance of the main character ‘Puffin’. Participated in a small team of 5 lighting artists, modifying digital light-rigs, balancing shots and generating final compositing scripts using Nuke. Completed 7 of the 11 shots under close direction of the CG Supervisor.

Digital Artist - Lighting (The Polar Bears Coke Short Film) Animal Logic (201-500 employees; Motion Pictures & Film Industry)August 2012 - August 2012 (2 weeks, Sydney, Australia)

Contributed to the short film as one of 14 lighting artists, rendering and compositing shots. Shot-lighting one of the longer shots in the short film, modifying the digital light setup and comp script balancing the traditional lighting passes for final delivery to client.

Digital Artist - Lighting (Super Bowl XLVI Coke TVC) Animal Logic (201-500 employees; Motion Pictures & Film Industry)January 2012 - January 2012 (2 weeks, Sydney, Australia)

Participated as a shot-lighter, with a team comprising of 6 lighting artists. Worked on several shots using the traditional lighting pipeline at Animal Logic. Rendered and composited shots comprising of multiple team content which assumed either team could win the Superbowl.


Freelance Graphic DesignerSMART INC. (11-50 employees; Design Industry)February 2012 - March 2012 (2 months, Gold Coast, Australia)

Performed numerous design tasks set by the Creative Director. Duties comprised of the creation and modification of print materials such as magazine ads, brochures, posters and also involved producing digital content including site layout and banner adverts, whilst upholding various brand style guidelines.

Freelance Graphic DesignerCresser Creative Strategy + Design (2-10 employees; Design Industry)September 2010 - December 2010 (4 months, Gold Coast, Australia)

Completed design tasks developing print media for financial institutions and property developments. Worked directly with the founder / lead designer to create high-quality offer documents, newspaper adverts, brochures and web banners and various media.

CG Supervisor & Creative DirectorBose Pty Limited (101-200 employees; Audio & Marketing Industry)February 2008 - August 2009 (1 year 7 months, Gold Coast, Australia)

Appointed as 1/3 worldwide Bose brand specialists and certified internal 3D vendor for Bose Corporation, producing 3D materials for domestic and global distribution. Continued to supervise communications team whilst directing communication materials ensuring quality and brand consistency.

CG Artist & Graphic Designer Bose Pty Limited (101-200 employees; Audio & Marketing Industry)January 2004 - November 2006 (2 years 11 months, Gold Coast, Australia)

Provided graphic design services in addition to creating 3D assets for the Asia Pacific region. Reported directly to Marketing Manager in order to provide efficient turnarounds and quality materials to the several divisions of Bose covering both digital and physical print media.

CG Artist & Communications Team LeaderBose Pty Limited (101-200 employees; Audio & Marketing Industry)November 2006 - February 2008 (1 year 4 months, Gold Coast, Australia)

Created 3D & graphic design content for domestic and international use. Managed communications team (consisting of junior, senior and web designers) for the Asia Pacific region. Supervised projects and held weekly progress status meetings in order to meet deadlines.

Design

S M A R T TM


Company Founder & ArtistTriAxis Animation & Design (0-1 employees; Design Industry)February 2002 - Present (11 years 2 months, Gold Coast, Australia)

Formed TriAxis to provide freelance 3D animation services, graphic design, CD authoring, flash and website design (non-advertised). TriAxis has had a very wide client base and continues to provide high-quality print and digital materials.

Teaching FellowBond University (11-50 employees; Motion Pictures & Film Industry)March 2001 - January 2004 (2 years 11 months, Gold Coast, Australia)

Taught individual classes of 30+ students as primary teaching fellow. Subjects: Multimedia 1, Multimedia 2 & Interactive Media Programming (3D animation, video, sound editing, 2D design & Flash animation).

3D Artist & Visual Effects Intern Photon Stockman VFX (11-50 employees; Motion Pictures & Film Industry)August 2000 - December 2000 (5 months, Gold Coast, Australia)

Worked with three 3D artists observing work in the areas of modeling, texturing, animation, lighting & rendering in a post production environment.

Other

VFX


Honors In Information Technology (Thesis Deferred)Bond University (1,001-5,000 employees; Higher Education Industry)January 2002 - April 2003 (1 year 6 months, Gold Coast, Australia)

Subjects: Thesis Title – Rendering Technologies Explored - Mental Ray vs. Pixar RenderMan. 3D Animation (3D Studio Max) Topics In Advanced Multimedia (OpenGL Programming) Networking Development 2.

Lighting & Rendering in MayaCG Society / CG Workshops (201-500 employees; Training Industry)May 2009 - July 2009 (2 months, Correspondence)

8 week course with industry expert Jeremy Birn (Pixar Lighting Technical Director and author of ‘Lighting & Rendering in Maya’).

Education

Degree In Information Technology, Multimedia MajorBond University (1,001-5,000 employees; Higher Education Industry)January 1999 - December 2000 (12 months, Gold Coast, Australia)

(Received Bond University art / information technology scholarship in 1998). Placed on Vice Chancellor’s list for excellence.

Photorealism With Mental RayCG Society / CG Workshops (201-500 employees; Training Industry)February 2009 - April 2009 (2 months, Correspondence)

8 week course with industry expert Boaz Livny (author of ‘Mental ray for Maya, 3ds Max, and XSI: A 3D Artist’s Guide to Rendering’).

Mental Ray FundamentalsCG Society / CG Workshops (201-500 employees; Training Industry)March 2006 - May 2006 (2 months, Correspondence)

8 week course with industry expert Bart Gawboy (involved in creating the successful animated movie Shrek and Training Director for Mental Images).

Received scholarship to Silicon Studios (SGI)Silicon Studios, Quantum (201-500 employees; Training Industry)August 1998 - September 1998 (2 months, Brisbane, Australia)

Studied Alias / Wavefront Maya v1.0, Matador, Elastic Reality and Composer. Completed several projects covering different facets of the 3D process.


BreakdownThe Lego Movie (Trailer 2) 010SH 010 & 012SH 100 - Key Lighting

Perhaps the most complex key light I have completed to date. Large amounts of complex geometry coupled with raytraced reflections with subsurface scatter contributing to indirect illumination. These shots contain dense atmospheric effects and make up around 35 shots, handled by myself and a shot lighter.

The Lego Movie (Trailer 2) 020ME 040 - Shot Lighting

My task was to optimise, refine, troubleshoot and composite the original setup. Stereo projection and lens issues had to be dealt with and heavy comping was required for what seems to be a simple shot. Lights were slightly modified to avoid noise and caustics were positioned using projection cameras in comp.

The Great Gatsby 106ST 0440 - Key Lighting

The Great Gatsby was the first production to use Animal Logic’s new ‘physically correct’ shader and lighting setup. Using the ‘083SR rig’ I used a projection camera in nuke to render the matte painting asset into an image which was then imported into an area light setup.

The Great Gatsby 134CW 0150, 0170 & 0030 - Key Lighting

Using the ‘135CW rig’ (used for multiple sequences), I rendered the coupe car asset (with separate window element), surrounding bridge and crowd elements. We used a combination of PTC and raytracing workflows which allowed for speed, yet specular reflections at a smaller max distance.

This shot presented many challenges with segmented motion blur. It used the same key rig I created for ‘135CW’ but at this camera level the lighting was slightly more raking than the surrounding shots to add interest. Dicing cameras were added as the cars drove past camera to avoid prman eye-split issues.

This was one of the more complicated fully CG shots. Originally all of the city scape was rendered with over 50 ptc’s. The bridge, cars, crowd and characters were all rendered using the same production approach as other shots which was quite challenging to render due to the magnitude of polygons.

The Great Gatsby 136EP 0810 - Key Lighting

Over 500 lights made up this shot, a lot of which were unfortunately cut out of the final shot. Lights included boats, cars, trains, sidewalks and girder lights, all of which were assigned appropriate colour temperatures. Street lamps switched on as the shot progressed but these were all culled in the compositing phase.

The Great Gatsby 179RC 2020 & 0030 - Shot Lighting

This shot had a lot wider scope than that of the original rig which meant some of the passes had to be altered. The entire shot except Toby was CG, which presented quite a challenges when wrangling on the renderfarm, specifically optimising trees and water surfaces.

The Great Gatsby 106ST 0190 - Shot Lighting

Using a key setup I added caustics, optimised the rig and troubleshot intersecting geo. As with all shots, a temp comp was made and then passed onto the compositing team for further alterations. Entire background is CG.

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BreakdownThe Great Gatsby 169FF 0090 - Key Lighting

This was a key light task which was entirely CG. The original shot was later cropped, making it a little less ‘real’. A lot of shot optimisation had to be performed in order to render the entire shot including dense CG trees.

The Great Gatsby 083SR 0020- Key Lighting

The most successful method of rendering reflective ocean surfaces on Gatsby was to use area lights with light map projections. Matte painting supplied Nuke scripts which we then extrapolated images from, applying overscan and positioning at the shore line. In the render submission script (RSS), I swapped out images for various passes so we could alter the flashing speed of the green light in the compositing phase. Directional and dome lights were also added.

The Great Gatsby 179RC 0050 & 20DL 5000 - Key Lighting

CG water shots, using many of the methods explained in previous scenarios. In these shots part of the dock was plate, so I matched the lighting to provide a nice blend. I also generated a shiny shader pass on the dock, allowing comp artists to simulate the rain as they saw fit.

The Great Gatsby 103ST 2000 & 2070 - Shot Lighting

These shots were very heavy to render, even with multiple passes to break up the geometry load. I key lit the water and performed various shot lighting tasks in order to get the final images to render on the farm. Many of the trees were optimised and tests were run to optimise / remove subdivisions where possible.

Legend Of The Guardians FL03 003 - Shot Lighting

Repositioned key and fill lights, dealt with various shadowing issues on ivy and shell objects. In comp edited eye reflections and specular hits using various data passes. Subsurface in the beak was also an important factor, this was modified in comp using predefined mattes.


This was quite a time consuming shot due to the dappled light we had placed over Soren’s face. It was tricky getting animated gobos to work throughout the sequence as the gobo was moving along with Soren. Various other modifications such as shadow map clipping were required in order not to cause too many distracting wing shadows over Soren’s face.


This shot had a minor amount of modification aside from the usual eye spec and reflection tricks. I added rims on characters and modified key positioning for best light angle on all faces. Stereo was checked on each shot on 3D cards were used in Nuke when necessary to grade.


This shot had a few challenges with Eglentine, she looked very dirty when she didn’t have halo rim lighting which made things difficult. Once again positioning gobos for dappled lighting and positioning keys and rims was the main task.

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BreakdownSucker Punch DF 0190 - Shot Lighting

Created the lighting for the flames in the walkways and alcoves using several noise maps and traditional lighting setup. This was combined with the master ‘courtyard rig’ and used throughout the shots. I made modifications to the initial nuke script setup we had, balancing the light passes as requested by the CG supervisor. Final comp elements were added by dedicated compositing artists.

Sucker Punch DF 0405 - Key Lighting

Created the ‘catapult rig’ which was essentially shots from this glancing angle which had castle elements in the background in combination with foreground renders which were blended with plate elements. Dealt with CSG (realtime prman boolean operations for destruction) in renders and troubleshot issues with texture filtering and motion factor. Key lit the castle with a traditional lighting setup and built the nuke script which was then modified by the compositing team.


Using the ‘catapult rig’ I made, I key lit the foreground and background castle elements with a silhouette approach. I then modified the B52 light rig one of the artists made and simplified the setup for the mid-distance render. Using data mattes and glows I generated the initial comp script which were then modified by a compositing artist.

Sucker Punch DF 0585, DF 0590, DF 0620 & DF 0675 - Shot Lighting

See also DF 0190. As our deadline was quickly approaching, I was asked to render a large portion of the courtyard shots, collating passes, checking for errors and re-rendering when necessary. Passes were then inserted into a pre-made comp and modified with positional and normal mattes and graded where appropriate. These shots were then passed to the final comp artists for editing.


Created a ‘dragon rig’ and ‘fire rig’, and used these in conjunction with the ‘castle rig’ which was a combination of a senior artists work and my ‘catapult rig’. This shot involved rendering a lot of ‘massive’ crowd elements at a very small size and dealing with various glancing-angle shadow artifacts on hero elements.


Using a traditional approach of strategically positioned spotlights and depth map shadows, I created several lights to simulate the dragon passing through the various courtyard fires as it swept up the debris in it’s path. Rendered the hero dragon asset plus fx elements (such as tiles and ‘massive’ orcs) which were pre-comped and later passes to comp artists.


Lit internal CG internal castle walls to match plate reference and used the ‘courtyard rig’ for background objects. The dragon used a key setup I made with fire light within the mouth. Scatter was boosted in comp.

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BreakdownHappy Feet Two 30H 025 - Shot Lighting

Using a ‘physically based’ two-step subsurface scatter setup, Happy Feet Two shots were quite time consuming to render. Each time shadows moved, bakes had to be regenerated in order to be accurate. This shot mainly required repositioning of rims and key lights. Crowd characters were rendered in groups to save memory, my comp script was approved and used as seen in theatres.

Happy Feet Two 30H 050 - Key Lighting

One of the more demanding shots, I rendered an overscan image (single frame) with the background geo and crowd characters. This was then projected on a card in Nuke to save on rendertime. Foreground elements had a day-time feel.

Happy Feet Two 37A 055 - Key Lighting

This shot used a variant of the ‘30H rig’ which had new key angles, rims and reflection passes. Beauty bakes were performed and shader overrides were assigned to get diffuse subtle reflections of the background penguins on the ice. This shot included hero characters, crowd, fur and cloth elements.

Happy Feet Two 44A 005 - Key Lighting

This shot was given to me at 5pm to complete by morning when deadlines were fierce. I used the ‘37A rig’ as it was briefed as a day-time shot and rendered multiple mattes in order to composit for approval the next morning.

Happy Feet Two 57 050 - Key Lighting

This was the main sequence I key lit on Happy Feet Two, the ‘Erik Opera’ sequence. The brief was the create an overcast, moody, ambient feel with long raking shadows. Challenges included working with the fx drool and lighting old jpg textures from Happy Feet (on the elephant seals). The drool was very hard to get plausible reflections on without raytracing whilst the textures were covered with fur to mask the problematic areas, which made it very difficult and slow to render. The eye lighting I created on a similar shot was later used as an example for other artists to follow in order to get nice refractions.

Happy Feet Two 57 090 - Key Lighting

As concept art wasn’t provided on this project, it took several iterations before coming up with something the lighting leads thought was appropriate for the sequence. This was one of the first shots to show where we were headed. This had some alterations applied (being the opposite point of view to most shots).

Happy Feet Two 57 305 & 410 - Key Lighting

These were two of the bigger shots in the sequence with a lot of crowd and hero characters. It also featured fx ‘snow kicks’ and ‘ground fog’ which were provided once we provided depth maps of geo to the fx artists.

Happy Feet Two 57 532 & 536 - Key Lighting

These shots featured some nice snow effects I got by gaining the subsurface component in lighting. Shaping Mumble’s head was a little hard in this shot as shaped creases were fairly flat-on in some areas.

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BreakdownPolar AI01 003 - Shot Lighting

This shot was picked up from another artist and had to be re-rendered. Some lights were repositioned and the final comp output was projected onto the non-fur version of the character bodies and then traced onto a simplified shader in order to get fur reflections on the ice, whilst colour modifications were then applied in the later compositing stages.

Polar Super Bowl TC01 210 - Shot Lighting

On this project I was mainly a shot lighting artist, picking up rigs from other artists in order to get subsequent shots out in the time frame given. This shot was fairly similar with a few tweaks and sparkles added to the final comp script.

Puffin SN01 010, 020, 030, 040 - Key Lighting

This shot had a rig already supplied but it was so heavily modified it ended up needing key lighting. The coke bottle had fairly stringent requirements and required a lot of modifications in lighting and comp to get the refractions and colours correct. Some of the hero character mattes were missing for Puffin, so I had to create new mattes in Photoshop and publish to the asset using the surfacing pipeline. This was later used by other artists.

I ended up also making a key light / grading setup in Nuke which was then propagated to other artists on the project.

Puffin SN01 090 - Shot Lighting

This shot mainly required compositing changes, a dicing camera was added in lighting to reduce certain flickering artifacts on the nose.

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Domenick Simpson - TriAxis Animation & Design · April 2012 - March 2013 (12 months, Sydney,...

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