Gustav Melich

Work History

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  Senior Creature/FX TD R&D

  Industrial Light & Magic

  March 2014 - November 2017

  San Francisco, CA

  Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)
  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
  Warcraft (2016)
  Ant-Man (2015)
  The Revenant (2015)
  Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)
  
  2015 CRDEV Tech Team (Anim/Creature/Simulation Tools, Pipeline and R&D)

  

  

  

  

• Lead iOS Developer

  Implicit Dimensions

  June 2013 - March 2016
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  Senior FX TD

  Digital Domain

  February 2014 - March 2014

  Playa Vista, CA

  Worked on David Fincher's new movie Gone Girl. Worked on multiple shots on different elements for underwater sequence. Created volumetric elements for simulating particulates in the air.

  
• 

  Houdini Mentor

  Side Effects Software

  August 2012 - August 2013

  Santa Monica, CA

  Review and critique of interns progress on a sequence of shots. Recommend different approaches to solving visual effects problems. Areas of concentration include Dynamics, Cloth Simulation, Pyro, Fluids, and Particle Systems.
• 

  Senior FX TD

  Method Studios

  April 2013 - June 2013

  Santa Monica, CA

  Worked on Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters on multiple shots on different smoke elements. Also worked on Into the Storm on multiple shots creating mud and storm elements.

  
• 

  Senior FX TD

  Rhythm & Hues Studios

  January 2013 - April 2013

  El Segundo, California

  Worked on Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters on multiple shots on different elements for water using H12 FLIP solver and in-house tools.
• 

  Senior FX TD

  Digital Domain

  August 2012 - December 2012

  Venice, CA

  
  Worked on Iron Man 3 on multiple sequences on fracturing, destruction, fluid and pyro simulation. Implemented new Voronoi fracture tool in Houdini using HDK to replace DD's old tool. Created utility/helper HDAs for Digital Domain's proprietary RBD solver.
  
• 

  Senior FX Developer/Senior FX TD

  DreamWorks Animation

  August 2010 - August 2012

  Glendale, CA

  Worked as FX Developer, developing destruction pipeline for the upcoming movie Croods using Voronoi and Hermite Fracture tools in Houdini. Implemented numerous plugins and HDAs for fracturing. Developed upresing method for Voronoi fracture using geometric CSG. Worked on in-house RBD solver for Houdini. Implemented render hook plugin for Houdini to display RBD solver data. Designed and implemeted intelligent Point SOP node which behaves more like a script editor. Developed asset-management system for destruction using Python.

  
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  Senior Effects Artist

  DreamWorks Animation

  July 2009 - August 2010

  Glendale, CA

  Worked as FX Animator on Shrek Forever After and Megamind. Co-developed volumetric workflow for the dungeon sequence. RBD simulations for various shots. Worked on fluid simulations for liquids and smoke. Implemented binding solutions, geometry bake node, convex decomposition, local variable mapping node for Houdini using HDK/Python. Implemented "Simulation and Rendering of Liquid Foams" paper as a Houdini POP node using HDK.

  
• 

  Senior FX Technical Director/Dev TD

  Sony Pictures Imageworks

  December 2002 - July 2009

  Culver City, CA

  Worked as Senior FX Technical Director on Open Season, Surf's Up and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Setup particle simulations for dust and smoke, debris in Houdini. Worked on particle simulations for ocean water effects, splashes, ocean surface generation, generated footprints, generated particle simulations for sand, snow, wind and debris effects, simulated plants and foliage, created crowd simulations using Houdini.
  Worked as Cloth Dev TD on The Polar Express, Open Season, Spiderman 2, Cursed, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Superman Returns,
  Beowulf. Designed and developed hair, dynamic hair, cloth pipeline. Worked on in-house cloth solver development. Designed and implemented dynamic hair system in Maya (API/MEL). Designed and implemented feather combing system and solver in Maya (API/MEL). Designed and implemented cloth cacheCompositor system in Maya (API/MEL). Implemented 50+ Maya plugins to help cloth/hair/FX production.

  
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  Senior FX Animator

  Centropolis Effects

  May 2002 - December 2002

  Culver City

  Worked as FX Animator on Matrix 2 and Matrix 3. Created most of the FX on the sentinel destruction sequence. Developed several tools in Maya using C++/Maya API/MEL and Python to help FX shot work. Helped developing in-house fluid solver.
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  Technical Director

  Sony Pictures Imageworks

  May 2001 - April 2002

  Culver City, CA

  Worked as Cloth TD on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Stuart Little 2. Designed and implemented procedural cloth cache blending system using MEL/Perl in which based on the character's motion the final cloth simulation was generated from pre-computed simulations, noise was procedurally applied on top of it based on kinematic attributes.

  

  

  

  
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  Lead VFX Artist

  Square USA

  March 1999 - April 2001

  Honolulu, HI

  Worked on the movie Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within as Lead VFX Artist.
  Designed and created numerous FX setups in Maya. Developed shot tools using MEL/Perl/Python. Lead a small group of artists on 60+ FX shots.