Onirique was a senior portfolio project at the Savannah College of Art and Design. The idea spawned in the summer of 2015 while I was working at Method Studios and Alex Shilt at Pixar. It wasn't until Alex and I were working together in New York City at The Mill the following fall that we would decide to pursue the idea as a short film one afternoon while on a visit to the MoMA. We had both been heavily influenced by science fiction growing up, and we wanted to push ourselves as far as possible for the six month period our studio classes would last, so it made sense to roll with such an ambitious concept for our final student project. After developing boards and compiling hundreds of reference frames from various films and artworks, we brought on Juan Carlos Barquet as our Art Director and fellow CG Artist. Most of the artwork on this page is original - Juan is clearly one of the most well-educated and hard working artists in the world for his age. Once we returned to Savannah, GA, Alex and I acted as Directors and CG Supes. Harsh Agrawal was brought on as a Tech Supe of sorts to help with the constant barrage of renderman challenges we faced while working independently from Pixar. I led the Look Development efforts, which ranged from layout (cinematography), texturing, shading, lighting, rendering, and compositing. Alex acted as the modeling and dressing lead. We both had our hands full. We used renderman for all aspects of rendering other than the FX, which was done with Mantra in Houdini by the incredible Daniel Soo. The project was kept fairly small. John Pagan, Constance Bensen, and Jason Koh helped with various modeling and lighting tasks. Considering the time allotted and people involved, we were happy with what we were able to achieve. A series of full-cg environments completed within six-months between a handful of people. The times spent working together in the halls of Montgomery will be remembered fondly.
Pre-Production
Looking at cool images for hours and wearing cloaks
The Scenes of Onirique
Entirely computer generated scenes created from scratch
the collective unconscious
Isle of the Dead, Library Exterior
Corridor, Library Interior
Multivac, Library Interior
Cenotaph, Lab Exterior. Unfinished
Cenotaph, Lab Interior. Unfinished
Lair of the Bulk Being, Regal Room. Unfinished
Behind The Scenes
A warm look back at some of the fun times had while working on this project with these cool peeps