Digital Supervision / Shaders / Look Development / Compositing

Resume

Laurence Treweek

20+ years experience in films, both live action and animated features, as well as commercials in the roles of: Lighting Lead, Look Development, Shader Writer, Lighter, Compositor (Mono + Stereo), Pipeline Developer, Houdini and Dynamation. Experience 'on-set' and with client interaction.

Software experience:

Tools: Unreal, Katana, Nuke, Maya, Houdini, Softimage, Composer, Dynamation, Gimp, Bodypaint and proprietary software used at Sony Imageworks, ILM and PDI.

Renderers: Arnold, Renderman, Mental Ray, Mantra, PDI's original renderers.

Launguages: Open Shading Language, Renderman Shading Language, C, C++, Python, Perl, MEL, Scheme and Lisp.

DCC APIs: Katana, Maya, Houdini.

Employment :

2015 – Current : Walt Disney Imagineering, Glendale, CA 91206

Digital Supervisor / Media Designer

Working on a large number of projects to create and process media for attractions. Involves working with creative directors, architects, engineers and artists to produce tools, interfaces, and visual solutions to problems as well as final media.
Developing tools for visualizing stereo media combined with architecture and ride vehicles
Shader Writer / Look Developer for near realtime rendering of rear projected eyes for animatronic figures.
Compositor and Colorist for SeaRider at Tokyo Disney Seas.
Compositor for custom built Dual Plane LCD monitors used in the Iron Man Experience in Hong Kong.
FX Artist / Developer working with R&D to create a combined special event using projected media and 200 Intel drones.
Digital media supervisor for Frozen Ever After. Designing and creating media in partnership with Walt Disney Animation Studios.
Developed 'ice look' shading using 3D data to drive 2D shaders for fast in-field production.

2014 – 2015 : RGH Themed Entertainment, Woodland Hills, CA 91367

Senior Technical Director / Rendering + Shading Pipeline Architect.

Responsible for designing and creating tools and techniques for getting assets from texturing through to final rendering in a smooth and flexible manner inside a Windows / Maya centric pipeline.
Creating lighting and material standards to be used facility wide, based around the Arnold renderer.
Developing and maintaining a standard suite of Arnold shaders.
Researching rendering technologies for special venue presentations.

2014 – April - July : Bento Box Entertainment, North Hollywood, CA 91601

Shader Writer / Look Development / Pipeline.

Lead look development artist and developer for a motion capture based project.
Project involves developing a range of looks for non real time and real time rendering solutions using Motion Builder, Maya, Mental Ray, Nuke and custom hardware shaders using OpenGL and cgfx.
Implementing a small render farm based around Deadline6 and Windows7

1996 – 2014 : Sony Pictures Imageworks, Culver City, CA 90232

Senior Technical Director

Holding a lead position, responsible for handling all of the technical and artistic requests from a C.G. supervisor and setting up a team of lighters with pipelines and templates to complete the shot work. Also responsible for troubleshooting problems that arise in the course of production.
Responsible for developing production and facility shaders, pipelines, tools and anything considered a 'special project' to get shots done. Sometime this also required setting up whole custom pipelines specific to a production.
Experienced with shot finaling and working on shots while developing, prototyping and testing tools in production.
Familiar with working closely with artists and training them on the use of custom tools and pipelines.
Worked with the R&D department on a regular basis to help integrate, request and give specifications for tools needed by production.
Familiar with nearly every aspect of the pipeline that contributes to the final render including modeling, cameras, texture, cloth, hair and feather pipelines.
Experienced with both artistic and technical sides of production, This has given me the ability to effectively estimate resources required and prioritize requests for solutions as determined by the constraints of production. It has also allowed me to make predictions as to future requests from supervisors and plan ahead for their eventual integration.

Projects included:

The Amazing Spiderman 2

Look development for the “Rhino” character, developing a look for a complex articulated model and working with a team of modelers and texture painters to build the final product.
Prototyped lighting template used for shots and also worked as a lighter and compositor after completing look development.

Smurfs 2

Lighting lead and look development and lighting lead.
Worked to convert look development assets from Smurfs 1 to Smurfs 2, converting from Arnold C++ to Arnold OSL and redialing materials to match.
Primarily responsible for new look development for the “Storks” which required integrating shading and textures for hair and feathers and also working with the development group on upgrading the feather and hair pipeline.
Also responsible for look development of FX elements and set extensions used in Gargamel's lair sequence.

Men In Black 3

Lighting Lead for half of the Cape Canaveral sequence and nightime city shots.
Responsible for look development on modern/1960s and day/night CG Manhattan.
Worked on animated look development for time lapse buildings and environment.
Look development for the first use of Arnold volumetrics used for the steam and rocket plumes in the Cape Canaveral launch sequence.

The Smurfs

Lighting lead and look development with a team of 8 – 16 lighters and compositors.
Responsible for developing the look and shaders for the 'waterfall grotto' sequence. This also included testing a new pipeline using Mudbox and adaptive subdivision in Arnold.
Responsible for customs shaders for water effects, vegetation variations for Smurf Village and shadow capturing to integrate Smurfs and Spheron light capture data into the live action plate photography.
Worked on improving hair shader to work for Smurfette's hair.

Alice In Wonderland

Lead shader writer for Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland. Worked extensively on hair shading for all the furred creatures.
Also responsible for Arnold render support and shot debugging.

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs

Look development and shader writer.
Look development for the pasta sauce explosion, Flint's transparent shoes and the 'Tron' effect on the lab walls.
Responsible for general material shaders and also specific fx related shaders.

Spiderman 3

Look development and shader writer, developing the look for the 'Sandman' character.
Shader writer for 'Sandman' and also worked with dev team to develop LOD system of sand particle primitives.

'Rendering Tons Of Sand'.

Worked on lighting and compositing of shots involving 'Sandman'.

Monster House

Look development, shader writer, lighting
Developed the main facility shaders and portions of the Arnold renderer for the 'look' of Monster House.
Look development for special props inside the house and custom lighting effects, such as the hou
Worked on the Maya exporter for Arnold and developed Hypershade integration for material editing.

Spiderman 2

Look development, shader writer, lighting, Houdini fx.
Developed the look and Houdini pipeline used for Doctor Octopus' fusion reactor.
Shader writer for the fusion reactor materials.
Lighting and compositing shots involving the fusion reactor and C.G. water.

Spiderman 1

Look development, shader writer, lighting.
Worked on Houdini to RenderMan pipeline and shaders for rendering New York sequences with C.G buildings.
Developed Mental Ray pipeline and shaders used for integrating motion blurred reflections into the RenderMan images.

HollowMan

Look development, shader writer, tool development, lighting.
Developed techniques for controlling and rendering the invisibility process used in the human and gorilla transformation sequences. This involved working on Maya plugins, RenderMan plugins, shaders and integration with custom renderers.
Look development on the skeleton and major organs such as heart as liver.
Lighting and compositing of some of the invisibility transformation shots.

Volumetric Shaders Used In The Production Of Hollow Man

Snow Falling On Cedars

Look development, shader writer, modeling, matte painting, lighting and compositing.
Worked with a texture painter to produce a fully C.G. environment of Manzanar internment camp. The original plate consisted of a field with one real barrack building which was augmented with C.G. buildings, streets, vehicles, mountains etc. to create the final scene.

As Good As It Gets

Finding a solution to an accidental large scratch artifact and supervising a team of artists to restore the damaged film.

Contact

Look development, shader writer, pipeline development, lighting and compositing.
Developed rendering pipeline for Houdini 1.0 to Renderman.
Responsible for look and shader development for the 'Machine' and the plasma effects.

1993 - 1996 : Industrial Light and Magic. San Rafael CA 94901.

Senior Technical Director.

Projects included:

Men In Black

Lighting, compositing and custom effects for the 'Mikey' character.

Dragonheart

Lighting and compositing. RenderMan shader writer for parts of the dragon and custom lighting effects

Indian In the Cupboard

Compositing shots with the latest in-house compositor as generating 3D effects elements.

Star Trek Generations (VII)

Generating effects elements, lighting and compositing of the energy ribbon effect.

Disclosure

Lighting, compositing, shader writing for the file erasing effect in the V.R. Environment.

1991 - 1993 : Pacific Data Images. Sunnyvale, CA 94089

Technical Director.

Morphing, modeling, lighting, compositing and animating for commercials, music videos and feature films.

1989 - 1991 : Complete Video. Longacre, London WC1

Lighter, Compositer, Animator.

Working on commercials and show titles. Experienced with fast paced environment and working on 2-4 projects simultaneously using a wide range of 2D and 3D hardware and software.

Education:

B.A. Hons. Fashion & Textiles from Middlesex University, London, England.

Personal projects have also included working with computer graphics in conjunction with building various hardware projects such as 3D printers and a laser cutter. Theses projects included building the hardware and electronics from basic parts and modifying software libraries on a mac and arduinos to control the hardware to produce a result. References available upon request.