Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum
Occasionally as a designer and artist you land a project and opportunity that is just so perfect it feels tailor made for you. This is one of those moments. The Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum in Honolulu brought me onboard to produce animations as part of their exhibits. It couldn’t be a cooler topic: torpedoes and submarines! I find that stuff fascinating, I mean who wouldn’t?! The museum was expanding several exhibits, and needed videos to help demonstrate how three different torpedoes designs through US history functioned and were fielded. So cool.
The history of torpedo technology is fascinating, and having some prior knowledge on the topic certainly assisted with the research necessary. The venerable Mk-14 steam torpedo, the electric Mk-37, and the modern wire-guided Mk-48 torpedo are featured in the three videos produced.
I’ve yet to visit the museum, but they should be on display for your enjoyment and education.
The Technical Deets:
I’m not a shader artist/engineer, so building accurate over/underwater caustics and lighting was an exceptional challenge that required a lot of trial and error. I utilized a mix of compositing multiple plates; depth maps, particle plates, caustics, etc, to provide a sense of underwater visible distance (which was exaggerated substantially for effect).
Working off of existing engineering specs, each version was painstakingly modeled in C4D, and textured with substance painter, and rendered with Redshift.
There’s no playbook for a lot of the particle systems that were required for this project; high pressure air bursts from torpedo tubes, underwater explosions, surface effects for torpedo explosions, propeller cavitation. This stuff is all my jam, of course, but to get the exact look and feel I was going for, a substantial amount of tweaking and trial and error. I utilized X-Particles for C4D, robust, but challenging system.
The Take
system in Cinema 4D is a damn godsend. If you’re not familiar with it, essentially it allows you to set up all your necessary objects, and animate separate “takes,” each unique shot and camera angle can all be individually customized, and any changes on the parent-level apply downward. The whole thing is contained within a single file, and enables for easy batch-rendering. So much time and sweat was saved iterating within the Take system, on this project that consisted of over 40 individual shots, each with as many as 7 different composite plates in a cryptomatte.
This is the project that made me fall in love with the EXR format and Cryptomattes, which kept output files nice and tidy; each EXR file rendered is an individual frame, containing all relevant composite layers (As opposed to each composite layer frame being its own separate file). After Effects powered through the compositing for the individual shots (EXtractoR plugin is a must-have), and the final edit was fine-tuned in Premiere.
There’s no playbook for a lot of the particle systems that were required for this project; high pressure air bursts from torpedo tubes, underwater explosions, surface effects for torpedo explosions, propeller cavitation. This stuff is all my jam, of course, but to get the exact look and feel I was going for, a substantial amount of tweaking and trial and error. I utilized X-Particles for C4D, robust, but challenging system.
The Take
system in Cinema 4D is a damn godsend. If you’re not familiar with it, essentially it allows you to set up all your necessary objects, and animate separate “takes,” each unique shot and camera angle can all be individually customized, and any changes on the parent-level apply downward. The whole thing is contained within a single file, and enables for easy batch-rendering. So much time and sweat was saved iterating within the Take system, on this project that consisted of over 40 individual shots, each with as many as 7 different composite plates in a cryptomatte.
This is the project that made me fall in love with the EXR format and Cryptomattes, which kept output files nice and tidy; each EXR file rendered is an individual frame, containing all relevant composite layers (As opposed to each composite layer frame being its own separate file). After Effects powered through the compositing for the individual shots (EXtractoR plugin is a must-have), and the final edit was fine-tuned in Premiere.
“Maneki” Sequence
The Seattle-based band Thunderpussy brought me on board to be their visual designer for their live show projections. I’ve been with them ever since, designing graphics and running the graphics for their shows.
One of the first sequences designed was the “Maneki Neko” sequence, utilizing the iconic cats, with a bit of Bowie flair added to it. I hand painted onto some dollar-store maneki.
Filmed on a mirrored turntable, and shot several dozen different iterations of the cat, spinning, static, etc.
Filmed on a mirrored turntable, and shot several dozen different iterations of the cat, spinning, static, etc.
I see a lot of live shows, and there’s some boring graphics up there; simple geometric shapes, or random pulls from music videos. Viz needs to POP. The usual wasn’t good enough for me, I wanted something more, and something that fit the flavor and color of the song, most importantly added to it.
The challenge though finding the right balance realizing these visuals are not the show itself, they’re just an aspect of the show... an additional topping on the pizza, if you will (And who doesn’t love pizza?). You need to have your visuals work with the band, the sound, the lighting, not steal the show or overshadow it. Confident I struck the right balance.
And here you see it up on the main stage at the 2016 Capitol Hill Block Party, with singer Molly Sides in the foreground. The viz looked damn good up on a Jumbotron, and it never gets old seeing things scaled up to 100 feet. (Event footage by Andrew Franks)
Individual clips were programmed and controlled via a midi pad, and plugged through the program VDMX5. Beep boop beep.
And here you see it up on the main stage at the 2016 Capitol Hill Block Party, with singer Molly Sides in the foreground. The viz looked damn good up on a Jumbotron, and it never gets old seeing things scaled up to 100 feet. (Event footage by Andrew Franks)
Individual clips were programmed and controlled via a midi pad, and plugged through the program VDMX5. Beep boop beep.
This version is formatted for the Marriott building, which has unique twelve-screen display which required our motion to be specialized to its characteristics.
Highlights Magazine Mobile Ad
During my time at Bamboo, one of their longtime clients, Highlights Magazine needed something with some color and pizzaz. As senior motion designer on staff, I pushed for more animation to utilize 3D. This was modeled, fully shaded in Redshift and animated all roughly across a two week period.
The finished spot
“Planets” Sequence
Another piece I animated for the Seattle-based band Thunderpussy, which I typically run for their song Badlands. Badlands has a pretty haunting quality to it and so I started to come up with some spacey visuals in my head. You’ll probably notice a common theme running with my work. If I can make it space-themed, I will!
Inspiration struck when watching raw sequential footage of Cassini’s (RIP, spaceboi) flybys around Saturn and her moons. The haunting ballet of motion interrupted with the imperfections of technology attempting to capture it.
I was in love with every bit of it. I had to do something like it. With the demise of the Cassini, it has become a bit of an homage, its breathtaking photos and data having been a constant for most of my adult life, something that I had taken for granted.
I was in love with every bit of it. I had to do something like it. With the demise of the Cassini, it has become a bit of an homage, its breathtaking photos and data having been a constant for most of my adult life, something that I had taken for granted.
I created with what the band has dubbed “Planet Thunderpussy,” orbiting some unnamed super fab gas giant. And in the proper spirit of 70’s glam rock, I had to give the planet some signage oomph that would be impossible to miss, and foolish to forget.
The saturated colors of the visuals pair well with heavy stage lighting, fog machine. The song builds up and I start to roll out the close up looping shadow of the planet at crescendo.
