BYU 3D Projects

Spelljammer Tavern

Spring Semester of 2023

Modeled in Maya. Textured in Substance Painter & UE5. Rendered in UE5

For a professor's pre-vis class, I was hired to create an environment for their Spelljammer world in Unreal Engine. I oversaw the design, modeling, texturing, layout, and lighting of a Tavern that would fit with their story.

Haunted House

Fall Semester of 2022

Modeled in Maya. Textured in Substance Painter. Built tools and Rendered in UE5

As a class, we picked the theme of a haunted house and built a kitbash to fit that theme. I created couches, potion bottles, jars, wardrobes, and eyeballs. I also built a tool, so that my fellow classmates could change the style, texture, and shape of my objects for the layout process. Afterward, I was tasked with creating an effect where the paintings would change if the character touched the bounding box. We learned the challenges of working as a group and how to communicate to make our projects successful. Using the kitbash of models, effects, and layouts, I produced a short cinematic. I now have a basic understanding on Unreal Engine and what is needed to create interactive and narrative experiences in real-time. 

Procedural Orange

Fall Semester of 2022

Modeled and textured in Houdini. Rendered in Karma.

This assignment was to create a realistic fruit by building a shading node network inside Houdini. I learned how to build beauty and aesthetic using observation and layers. I purchased a new orange every week that I studied to build the textures. To create such detail, I learned technical and programmatic principles to generate procedural patterns, displacements, and surface models. I feel more comfortable opening the hood to solve problems.

GINGERBREAD HOUSE

Winter Semester of 2022

Modeled using node networks in Houdini.

To learn Houdini, I was tasked with building a gingerbread house only through its node network. I was not allowed to hand model anything. This assignment helped me understand how to add variation in procedural modeling and the different tools Houdini has to offer.

LANTERN MIMIC

Winter Semester of 2022

Modeled and rigged in Maya. Textured in Substance Painter. Rendered in Arnold.

My task was to design an ordinary medieval object that would transform into a monster. I gained a basic understanding of rigging, blending shapes, and dynamic effects to create a lantern that would transform smoothly into a serpent.

Lantern Bug

Winter Semester of 2021

Modeled and textured in Maya. Rendered in Arnold.

To get into the BYU animation program, I had to create a still life of any kind of bug. I chose a Lantern Bug because of its interesting name, colors, and history. I created the textures the old-fashioned way, by taking UV maps in Photoshop and manually dialing in the layers.  I also wanted to stand out, so I did personal research on how to do fluid simulations in Maya to make and incorporate a flame for the candle.

Lego

Winter Semester of 2020

Modeled and textured in Maya. Rendered in Arnold.

Another requirement to apply to the BYU animation program was to create a scene made of Legos. The purpose of this assignment was to create our own story while staying on model. I built an actual Lego model out of Legos that I consistently referenced while creating this still life. Like the Bug project, I built the texture maps in Photoshop.

TRAIN CODE

Winter Semester of 2022

Modeled using Python in Maya.

Students had to be able to understand the basics of code in animation. I was able to create a code that would automatically model a Christmas train. We were challenged to add layers of detail to our trains, without any hand modeling. I wanted to stand out, so I added a randomization to my code where the train car would either fill with teddy bears, presents, or Christmas trees.

WALL-E ANIMATION STUDY

Fall Semester of 2021

Animated in Maya. Rendered in Arnold.

I was provided a WALL-E rig and asked to recreate a few seconds from the film. I had to step through each frame of a scene to notice how all his different parts moved uniquely. This exercise helped me better understand motion, the fundamentals of animation, and the importance of reference.