Santiago Marino VFX Demo Reel 2022

SANTIAGO MARIÑO VFX DEMO REEL 2022.

Grettings everyone :D. This is my first submit to The Rookies since I started my journey in this incredible industry 2 yeas ago. I am glad I have this opportunity in front of me, and obviously I am excited to show and share my work (to which I have invested hours and hours of beautiful suffering and splendid enjoyment) of this last year with you all!.

Let's hope we get the criticism we deserve for our work, and keep improving day by day to achieve our goals and aspirations to reach the top and be the best versions of ourselves...

Without further ado, my Demo Reel :D.

GOLAEM PROJECT

This was the Golaem Project, the last one we did in this second trimester, and if I may, one of my favorites without a doubt.

Since I had a very large scene, I basically did one or two "sets" of characters with different animations, hit cache and then used the beautiful Layout Sistem that Golaem has where you can use that cache and: move, rotate, duplicate, freeze, scale, etc, a whole group of characters or just one by one.

It was really fun, cool and interesting at the same time it was difficult and tricky to learn all the steps, but I think it was worth at the end...

MATTEPAINTING PROJECT

This was the mattepainting project where we learn how to composite images or footages behind our renders to give that final touch.

The Tie Fighter was completly done (and then destroyed) by me, modeled and texturized in Maya and Substance Painter, and with the beautiful scans of Quixel I was ready to go. I also used Mash to scatter some detail on the ground.

After rendering, we brought the camera into Nuke, chose and composite the images and then used 3D cards to put them in the background. 

Hope you like it :D!

CHROMA PROJECT

For the third and last project of the first trimester, we did a Chroma-Key project, where we had to integrate a green screen footage with a 3D enviroment. Since Chroma Key is one of the main aspects on VFX, I really was excited to give it a shot, plus we were able to finally understand how this process works and what were its natural enemies at the moment of making it .

So first and foremost, I looked at the footage that was provided by the school and saw it had this mountain-climber kind of vibe...so I went full cyberpunk instead :).

 We tracked the footage and exported the camera into Maya and then we did the chroma key where we took the alpha of the subject in question. This was not an easy task, since all the imperfections on set with the lights, the green screen and some natural enemies like the hair were a challenge to fix and polish, but with some roto skills and time (especially time) I could pull it off nicely. Finally, I put up the enviroment, rendered it and did all the composition and integration in Nuke for this final result...

Enjoy :D!

UNREAL ENGINE  PROJECT

For this Unreal Engine project, we had to do a full enviroment with the tools and strong render engine UE has to offer, so I decided to go with an ancient rune aproach that I think has something majestic to it.

With the incredible help again of Quixel and Megascans, I put up the enviroment and finished the first draft. Then, I had to add the protagonists of the story, the runes, which were completly modeled and shaded by me in Maya.

After that I added the characters to accomplish this futuristic adventure sub-trama I wanted :).

Finally, for the compositing I usted the build-in post-process effects UE has to add those final touches to the render.

nCLOTH PROJECT

In this nCLOTH project our goal was to do a simple cloth simulation. In my case, I had just watched one of Clint Pawnisher 3D challenges, so I wanted to do something similar with my enviroment.

In this simulation, we had to go through the process of cleaning, and preparing the mesh we were going to use, then make it nCloth and after applying some maps and touching some parameters (and suffering through hours of playblasts) I had the result I was looking for.

I also used ncloth to do some other little details in the enviroment like a flag and the ropes on the wooden bridge.

Finally, all I had to do was a mattepainting for the background and do some compositing in Nuke to have this final result.

So, this is it...

Conclusions and gratitudes

So, this were the projects I liked the most and wanted to share with you; this year was honestly a blast and, even thought there were a lot of potholes I had a lof of fun working, learning, and improving myself. I know my work is still not there yet, I am aware it still needs a ton of hours and polishment, but I like that, that means I still have awesome things to discover and do. I am also glad I had this opportunity with The Rookies to feel more confident and show this to the world...it is a nice step.

I aswell wanted to thank my teachers and classmates who were always there making sure I didn't die and helping me in anyway they could, I hope the best for them too and wish the best result for them on this entry :D.

Thank you very much for passing by and for your attention, I really hope you liked it, and wish the best for you in your career, this industry can be hard, but it is worth fighting to be in it, it is really a dream...

Santiago Mariño Merchan