VFX | Ernest Kuan Earn Wei

‘Psychedelics’ | VFX Project

- ‘Psychedelics’ is a short VFX edit where I experimented with 3D Motion Graphics. It depicts characters hallucinating psychedelic imagery with vibrant colours, eg. Clouds /Mushrooms / Butterflies / Cakes. Inspiration for this project was drawn from certain music videos e.g. LSD – Audio.

- The first segment was of a man hallucinating psychedelic elements around him which I shot on a wide camera lens. The shots were tracked in PFTrack with all the correct focal length and framerate settings, the data was then exported to Autodesk Maya where the Motion Graphics were done and rendered. CG Compositing was done in Nuke. 

- The second segment had ‘psychedelic cupcakes’ which was a full CG Render. Similar with all other psychedelic elements, I used the ‘Lazy Unwrap’ method to texture simple gradients onto the 3D Models (which I modelled by hand as well). CG Compositing was done in Nuke.

- The third and final segment was of a lady hallucinating a butterfly which later multiplied into a huge herd of butterflies, giving a sense of euphoria to viewers. The butterfly was rigged and animated by hand and the herd of butterflies were achieved using MASH (A plug-in for Maya).

- All the plates were shot by hand. after a day of scouting for locations. I picked ‘Nagore Square’ and ‘New World Park’ in my hometown, Penang, as shooting locations as the buildings there fit the theme I was going for.

‘THE BIGGEST COCA-COLA CAN EVER!!!’ | VFX Project

- ‘THE BIGGEST COCA-COLA CAN EVER!!! is a dark comedy VFX Short/Ad/Skit about a man who got a taste of his own medicine after littering at the skateboard park. I had a limited amount of time to figure out an idea for a matchmoving project, therefore this was spontaneously shot with my friend Alif while he himself was doing shooting for his own project. 

- The plate was shot by hand as mentioned and tracked in PFTrack. A ground fracture simulation was done using Magic Bullet (A plug-in for Maya) and the dust was generated by yet another plug-in, Pheonix FD.

- Then I used a free Coca-Cola can model from sketchfab.com and added some surface dents to it to make it look a little bit more creepy. The can was textured in Substance Painter while the ground was textured using a node-based system in Hypershade. All the final compositing was done in After Effects.

‘Mission Emission’ | VFX Project

- ‘Mission Emission’ is a group project in which I had the opportunity of directing. It is a VFX Short Film about a bot sneaking into a man's room while he is sleeping, but what it was actually trying to steal could turn out to 'shock' you. (You may kindly skip over this entry if it does not fit the qualifications.)

- All the plates were shot by hand, and we were able to use some basic lighting equipment to set up a night scene at one of our friends’ place. We used a small rice cooker as a real-life reference and pasted tracking markers all over the room for matchmoving purposes.

-We measured the room using measuring tape and we created a virtual copy of the room with the measurements that we did in Maya. With this, we were able to easily recreate scenes with the bot. As you may have noticed, we added the desk and chair in post to improve the composition of the room.

- Other than directing, my contribution in this project included rigging of the bot, majority of the animation and some of the object removals. Most of the time, the lighting equipment we used was in frame so we had to remove them digitally in post. I was also responsible for stitching together two separate shots seamlessly as one of the shots had a light stand in the way while the other had a much better lighting. 

- ‘Mission Emission’ was the first time that our college carried out a group VFX Project so it was a pleasure for me to be given such an opportunity.

‘Travearth' | VFX Project

-‘Travearth’ is a VFX Project where I did a few Sci-Fi themed VFX shots. The first was of a hologram showing the location of the character. The plate was shot by hand, the modelling and lighting for the hologram device was done in Maya and the texturing was done in Substance Painter. The hologram was done in Element 3D, a plug-in for After Effects. 

- The 2nd shot was of a character entering into a portal which transports him into a wormhole. The portal was made using fractal noises and various improvisations, while the wormhole was made in Element 3D. A few things that are still bugging me today is the lack of light wrapping on the character, and the rough rotoscope.

‘Lighting & Composting’ | VFX Practice

- This piece is one of my first lighting and compositing practices in which I had to render and blend an object into a photograph seamlessly, observing the perspective and lighting conditions of the original scene. I downloaded a free model of the wooden masks from sketchfab.com (as it seemed an appropriate decoration), and was responsible for the texture & shader as well. 

My VFX Showreel

- To end off my submission, here is my VFX reel compiling the best VFX work that I have to offer. The environment render in the beginning isn’t necessarily a VFX piece, but it paved the way for developing new skills and knowledge that I applied in all of my future work.