Adam Ting Email: yadang.23@gmail.

com
Creature FX | Rigging | R&D | Pipeline TD Phone: (+44) 07771 536 040

ABOUT
Technically minded and anatomically inclined. If there is a technical problem I am on hand to troubleshoot, fix and
point you in the right direction. My area of expertise lies in the 'tense' and 'bloody' area between rigging and
creature effects; muscles, flesh and bone.

When I am not dissecting the innards of beasts, I am putting my broad range of skills and pipeline insight to good
use; writing scripts, developing tools and workflows for other artists/supervisors, troubleshooting problems and
pinpointing problem areas in the pipeline. My experience developing tools has ranged across all disciplines and I am
comfortable designing bespoke scripts for any discipline.

Pipeline and artists do not always see eye-to-eye in regards to workflow or time-lines, working in both departments I
am conveniently positioned to adjudicate and advise the optimal course of action, this leaves me in good stead when
I am developing as I am able to see the bigger pictures from both perspectives. With this knowledge, I confer with
production to manage artist expectations and discuss realistic production timelines.

Role Specific Skills

 Strong scripting and programming ability.
 Good understanding of anatomical functionality/biomechanics.
 Comfortable doing complex mathematics and problem solving.
 Experienced in working in a collaborative working environment, utilizing all areas of the pipeline.
 Able to easily pick up new software, tools and workflows, and jump straight into the task at hand.
 Follow pipeline coding standards to create maintainable, well-documented code; to allow others to easily adapt
and learn from.
Disciplines
 Creature FX : Muscles, Cloth (Houdini, Maya)
 Rigging (Maya, Houdini)
 Tool Development/Pipeline (Python, C++, bash, Vex, Hscript, MEL, Shotgun/OpenMaya/ Arnold API)
 Crowd (Currently Learning) (Houdini)

INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE
Framestore IA - Technical Director 2017-current
My role responsibilities consist of cfx tasks in Houdini, pipeline tools, facilitating artists, troubleshooting problems
and providing technical insight for producers and supervisors.
Projects that I have worked on during this role:
 WIP Unnanounced Project - Dark Ride 2019- current
o CFX, Rigging, R&D: Integral in establishing a robust creature pipeline, this includes cfx rig builds, muscle, fat,
flesh, wrinkle simulations as well as further refinements to allow for exaggerated skin sliding and muscle
twitches. I was responsible for the Houdini workflow, optimising simulations, creating otls to manage
incoming geometry whilst collaborating and assisting in developing tools for the Maya-related workflow.
(Houdini, Maya, Python)
 Created full Houdini simulation setups for 12 land/sea creatures of various body types using FEM, Cloth
Solvers and non-simulated native Houdini nodes. These creatures are close-up/in herds and have muscle,
fat, flesh, wrinkling, skin-sliding, foot impact ripples and collisions built into the system. This new workflow
can be controlled from the top level OTL and allows artists to select which elements to include in the
simulation and make adjustments to the settings or geometry at any part of the process with ease.

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  Created 6 initial cfx rig setups for biped/quadruped creatures and updated and maintained the 6 other
setups. During this I developed a technique to "blendshape" rig control positions between 2 differing
geometries.
o R&D: Tool development to facilitate animator camera workflow, allowing them to animate across multiple
screens interactively. (Maya, Python)

 McDonald's UK Christmas 2018 Advert #ReindeerReady

o CFX, R&D: Developed a muscle workflow and setup for the Reindeer asset. The setup was developed in
Houdini to allow customisation for muscles, fascia, fat and skin wrinkling.
(Houdini)
o Rigging, R&D: Established a workflow for transferring joint-based skinweights between Maya and Houdini
using python and native Houdini nodes. (Maya to Houdini)
o CFX: Provided shot execution for breathe and RBD harness.(Houdini)

 Pokémon Detective Pikachu

o R&D: I applied machine learning "deepfake" libraries to replace the mouth movements of archived footage of
an actor's face with new mouth movements of the same actor, in present day . The result was footage of a
young Bill Nighy mouthing words, dictated by modern day Bill. (Python, Recycle-GAN)
o Using deepfake libraries which use machine learning applied to archived footage of an actor's face, and
replace the mouth movements with newly captured motion. The result was footage of a young Bill Nighy
mouthing words from modern day Bill
o CFX: Simulated fat/cloth/hair simulations for Gyarados. (Maya)

 Go Compare.
o Rigging: Wallet and purse rig that needed to be heavily deformed/squashed. (Maya)
o CFX: Character cloth execution. (Houdini)

 Purdey's Hummingbird
o R&D: Developed and built-upon pre-existing tools for ingesting large amounts of assets/data from external
parties using python. I adapted existing scripts to ingest, organise and rename models and textures. (Python)

 Lionsgate Entertainment World: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Flight, The Twilight Saga: Midnight Ride, The
Twilight Saga: Bella's Journey - Dark Rides
o Facilitating artists with tool development, optimisations and pipeline tasks, including asset ingestion,
optimising artists' work scenes and adapting pre-existing tools.
(Python, Houdini, Maya, Mari, Nuke, Unreal Engine)

Framestore IA - Assistant Technical Director 2016-2017

I was responsible for facilitating the needs of artists, optimising their workflow and developing show specific tools. I
worked closely with the pipeline team and contributed to the internal pipeline code for various software packages:
Houdini, Maya, Mari, Nuke, Shotgun, Git. Projects that I worked on during this role:

 'Pearl Quest' Wanda Qingdao Park Dark Ride - Dark Ride 2016-2018
This was a full CG underwater environment. Framestore were in charge of creating high-quality cg environments
for 12 screens for the ride, projected on curved and flat screens . I was responsible for facilitating artists,
optimising data, rigging and creating pipeline tools. Some of the tasks included:

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 o Pipeline: Creating a shotbuilding tool for multiple packages, using Shotgun API. Given the current shot, you
can specify the required assets needed. This proved invaluable for automating "quality-check" renders.
(Maya, Houdini, Nuke, Mari, Shotgun API, Python)
o Pipeline R&D: Utilising particle instancing to scatter geometry across a scene, storing the data as a yml file
that can then be published and manipulated between Houdini and Maya seamlessly. Fully integrated into the
pipeline as its own published data type. (Maya, Python)
o Pipeline R&D: Adapting a lens shader to render an motion vectors across a squinched surface using Maya
cameras with Arnold API. (C++, Maya)
o Pipeline R&D: Using OpenMaya python API I created and stored the rest position of character rigs per point
when an animated asset is published so that it can be brought into Houdini as an attribute. (Maya, Python)
o Rigging: Created and maintained 12 unique fish assets, including pufferfish, eagle rays and seahorses. (Maya)
o Crowd: Utilised instancing to create crowds of turtles, swordfish and eagle rays. (Houdini)

Marshmellow Laser Feast- Freelance Rigger July 2019

I provided mocap rigs, cleaned up motion-capture animation and advised artists workflows for future setups for the
TV Series "Brave New World".

FURTHER EXPERIENCE
Peer Assisted Learning Leader 2014-2015
Facilitating animation students by presenting regular seminar/feedback sessions.

Student Representative 2013-2015

Received an anonymous "You're Brilliant!" Award:
 "...Thank you for taking care of every request and always putting maximum effort into resolving all of our issues"

EDUCATION
BA (Hons) Computer Visualisation and Animation , NCCA at Bournemouth University 2013-2016
Recipient of BU Academic Excellence Scholarship graduated with first class honours.

REFERENCES

Name: Adam Burnett Name: Eugénie von Tunzelmann

Title: Creature/CG Supervisor Title: VFX Supervisor
Email: a.s.burnett@googlemail.com Email: eugenievt@gmail.com
Phone: 07921 829 407 Phone: 07932 789 380
07921 829 407
Name: Andrew Butler Name: Nicolas Darques
Title: Lead Rigger Title: Senior Pipeline TD
Email: knurbs@gmail.com Email: dsideb@gmail.com
Phone: 07825 373 808 Phone: 07758 724 440

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