A Decade Of Visual Effects
Before I built devices and research prototypes, I spent a decade in visual effects. I focused on writing the shaders and tools that other people used to make the pretty pixels.
It started in 2009 as a technical-direction intern at Trixter in Germany, on Percy Jackson and Iron Man 2. There I open-sourced a lens-distortion plugin for Nuke.
The work followed the shows around the world. At Rising Sun Pictures in Adelaide, Australia, I wrote shaders and lit shots on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, then built the creature shaders and a point-based effects pipeline for Journey 2. Back in Germany I did early lighting and rendering work on Iron Man 3 at Trixter, and later led a new production pipeline as Lead Pipeline TD at Imagestorm.
The longest and most formative stretch was at Image Engine in Vancouver, Canada, working on the studio’s proprietary tools, Cortex and Gaffer. I contributed an editor for Gaffer’s animation curves, a small expression language for its light-linking, and fur-curve conversion tooling for the pipeline. The shows were Game of Thrones, Fantastic Beasts, Logan, Detective Pikachu… The team at Image Engine was truly unique and I’m incredibly grateful for the mentorship I received.
I left the industry in 2019 to find new challenges in Fashion Tech.
- What
- VFX shaders and pipeline tools for feature film and TV.
- Role
- Pipeline TD, shader writing, lighting — depending on the show.
- Span
- 2009 → 2019
- Status
- completed