Kristin Farrensteiner

Kristin Farrensteiner

Groom Supervisor at Dneg Feature Animation

Groom Supervisor / 11 yrs

London, United Kingdom

Hire Me

Lead Groom TD

Garfield (2024)

Groom Lead TD

That Christmas (2024)

Groom TD

Life on Our Planet (2023)

Groom TD

Brahmastra (2022)

Groom TD

Lost Ollie (2022)

Digital Artist

Fistful of Vengeance (2022)

Lead Groom TD

Nimona (2023)

CFX Artist

Ron's gone wrong (2021)

Groom TD

Fast & Furious 9 (2021)

Groom TD

Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)

Groom TD

WONDER WOMAN 1984 (2020)

Groom TD

Cursed (2020)

Groom TD

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Intuitive thinker with over ten years of experience working in the CG entertainment industry with a generalist background.

I’m best known for building and simulating digital hair and fur for Marvel, DC and Disney movies, including Avengers: Endgame, Cursed, Wonder Woman 1984, Ron’s Gone Wrong and the Snyder cut.

I take joy in solving new and complex problems and the challenge of learning something new every day.
I like to approach things with an innovative bent and work out diverse solutions and actionable strategies when it comes to approaching a technical problem or establishing a pipeline. I love the technical side of things and have an interest in programming languages, innovative technologies and VFX pipelines in general.
That’s why I love to keep myself busy with personal projects in my free time, or working on tools that can speed up production workflows!
I’m always up for a challenge and see myself more on the technical side of the artist spectrum.

I worked for several years as a generalist before joining Double Negative in 2018 as part of the core grooming and later CFX team.
In 2020 I joined ILM, before rejoining DNEG in 2022 as Lead Groom TD and later on as Groom Supervisor.

I acted as an Instructor for CGMA and PIXL VISN mentoring students, graduates and new starters in the industry. I created a workshop for The Gnomon Workshop for advanced Houdini techniques and enjoy participating in public speaking events.

Core Skills:
Houdini, Vellum, Carbon, Yeti, Xgen, Ornatrix
Maya, nHair, nCloth, zBrush, Marvelous Designer, Ziva, Unreal Engine
Substance, Mari
Clarisse, Katana, Redshift, Arnold, Renderman
Unix/Linux based Systems, Python, VEX, OTL Creation

Titles I worked on:
Avengers: Endgame, Nimona, Garfield, Wonder Woman 1984, Fast and Furious 9, Ron's Gone Wrong, Zack Snyder's Justice League, Cursed, Fistful of Vengeance, Brahmastra & Various Unannounced Projects

Publications and scientific papers:

Siggraph Talk (2020): Hair and Fur in an Evolving Pipeline
Gnomon Workshop (2021): Hair & Fur Grooms in Houdini - Advanced Grooming Techniques with Kristin Farrensteiner
80 Level Interview (2016): Creating an Interactive Movie in Unreal

Core Skills:
Houdini, Vellum, Carbon, Yeti, Xgen, Ornatrix
Maya, nHair, nCloth, zBrush, Marvelous Designer, Ziva, Unreal Engine
Substance, Mari
Clarisse, Katana, Redshift, Arnold, Renderman
Unix/Linux based Systems, Python, VEX, OTL Creation

Titles I worked on:
Avengers: Endgame, Wonder Woman 1984, Fast and Furious 9, Ron's Gone Wrong, Zack Snyder's Justice League, Cursed, Fistful of Vengeance, Brahmastra & Various Unannounced Projects

Publications and scientific papers:

Siggraph Talk (2020): Hair and Fur in an Evolving Pipeline
Gnomon Workshop (2021): Hair & Fur Grooms in Houdini - Advanced Grooming Techniques with Kristin Farrensteiner
80 Level Interview (2016): Creating an Interactive Movie in Unreal
______________________________

"That girl is using black magic to groom"

"Answers questions fast and accurately. She clearly know what she is teaching as she can answer everyone's
questions without thinking! 10/10"

"Golden polygon award winner for mastering the dark art of Houdini show support"
Work History

  • 3D Artist

    Brave New Work - Filmproductions GmbH

    September 2014 - March 2015
    Hamburg, Germany

    - Building, animating, simulating and rendering a photorealistic 3D creature (sculpting & modeling, rigging, CFX and lighting)
    - Working on film sets

  • Groom Supervisor

    Double Negative

    June 2023 - Present

    Groom Supervisor - Dneg Animation

  • Lead Groom TD

    Double Negative

    April 2022 - June 2023
    London

    Lead Groom Technical Director DNEG Animation
    Titles: “Nimona”, “Garfield”

    Currently overseeing the grooming discipline in DNEG Animation cross-show with a focus on CFX handovers, automation and modern creature & character workflows.

    Leading a team of extremely talented surfacing artists in the grooming discipline across multiple sites, working on the most exciting animation projects currently in production.

    My responsibilities include:
    - Scoping improvements of the grooming pipeline & development
    - Writing & maintaining Houdini HDAs
    - Building templates to automise workflows
    - Python scripting —> Houdini (LOP, SOP & OUT tools) & Katana
    - Working with USD packages
    - Solutions for groom related pipeline problems
    - Debugging Jira tickets
    - Hosting team catch-ups
    - Workflow documentations
    - Training artists in grooming
    - Ensuring show deliveries & groom deliveries
    - Public Speaking: Grooming Masterclasses at BFX Festival in 2022

  • Groom Artist

    Industrial Light & Magic

    July 2020 - April 2022
    London, England, United Kingdom

    Groom Artist - Unannounced creature heavy TV show
    Tech fixes - “Lost Ollie”
    Tech fixes - Unannounced TV show

    - Building feather, hair & fur groom packages in Houdini and proprietary applications, ensuring pipeline implementation
    - Writing and maintaining Houdini groom HDAs
    - Working closely with the internal development team testing the feathers tools and providing feedback
    - Working with Katana templates, creating render passes, basic shading setups (Renderman) & slap comps in Nuke
    - Debugging shots
    - Writing case studies and groom pipeline requirement documentations
    - Establishing and scoping groom pipeline improvements for non-proprietary software ingestions
    - Handovers for texturing/ldev
    - Working on deformation setups
    - Generating simulation curves for CFX
    - Mentoring new hires
    - Tech and emergency fixes on various projects
    - Public speaking opportunities - Outreach

  • CFX Instructor

    PIXL VISN media arts academy

    October 2021 - January 2023
    Remote

    - Mentoring students at PIXL VISN in grooming & CFX
    - Preparation of two Houdini based creature and digital-double grooming & related creature FX classes
    - Debugging help
    - CFX 300 & 400 module

  • Senior Groom / CFX TD

    Dark Shadow VFX

    September 2021 - November 2021

    Digital Artist: "Fistful of Vengeance"

    - Vellum solver hacking

  • "Creating Creature Hair & Fur Grooms in Houdini" - Author

    The Gnomon Workshop

    October 2020 - December 2020
    Los Angeles, California, United States

    I had the opportunity to create a workshop in collaboration with the Gnomon Workshop!

    Description:
    This 19-chapter workshop begins by tackling the basics of a non-destructive and procedural grooming workflow in Houdini 18. Kristin focuses on setting up a mesh from scratch and how to separate specific fur regions based on different artistic compositions. With the foundations covered, she then dives deeper into the technical aspects of Houdini and provides detailed insights into how to troubleshoot potential issues such as memory lines, clump patterns, and mesh transfers. She reveals how to harness the power of Houdini to create a convincing groom package, shares her look-dev techniques, and reveals her approach to setting up grooms in Houdini’s rendering engine, Mantra.

    https://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/tutorials/creating-creature-hair-fur-grooms-in-houdini/

  • Grooming for VFX Masterclass Instructor

    CG Master Academy

    August 2019 - July 2021
    Los Angeles, California, United States

    Mentoring the Master Class “Grooming for VFX”:
    - Fall & Winter term 2019, Summer term 2020, Winter & Spring term 2021
    - Working closely with students and new starters in the industry and offering guidance, debugging help & feedback on digital doubles and creatures
    - Weekly live (Q&A) lessons
    - Covers mainly xGen, Yeti and Houdini as software packages
    - Preparation of small CFX (nHair & vellum) and basic fur related shading/texturing scenes (Arnold/Renderman)

  • Freelance Groom / CFX Artist

    Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg

    June 2020 - October 2020
    Ludwigsburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

    - Creation of Houdini digital double groom examples
    - Vellum simulation setups and templates
    - Weekly target meetings

  • CFX Artist

    Double Negative

    April 2020 - July 2020
    London, United Kingdom

    CFX Artist (Feature Animation) - "Ron's Gone Wrong"
    Groom TD (Film) - "Zack Snyder's Justice League"
    Groom Technical Director (Film) Credits:
    Groom TD - "Avengers: Endgame"
    Groom TD - "Wonder Woman 1984"
    Groom TD - "Fast and Furious 9"
    Groom TD - "Cursed"
    Groom TD - "Brahmastra"
    Groom TD - Various unannounced projects
    Tech fixes (uncredited) - "Hobbs & Shaw"

    - Character FX: Houdini cloth & hair simulation (Carbon, Vellum)
    - Building CFX character templates (cloth & hair)
    - Groom technical advisor for supervisor
    - Fixing and adjusting grooms after CFX stage and ensuring pipeline implementation
    - Debugging faulty job launches and technical tickets
    - Shot sculpting
    - Transferring Grooms after topology, UV and worldposition changes

  • Groom Technical Director

    Double Negative

    May 2018 - April 2020
    London, England, United Kingdom

    Siggraph 2020 Talk - Hair and Fur in an Evolving Pipeline

    - Working with Houdini & Maya and proprietary software packages
    - Greenlight Mentor - mentoring graduates
    - Responsible for grooming and look development tasks on digital doubles and realistic, but also fantastic creatures, based on photo references, scan data or concept art
    - Debugging groom-related pipeline issues
    - Building basic simulations for shot sculpting
    - Working closely with Modelling, Lookdev, R&D and CFX Departments on a daily basis
    - Providing shot sculpts for CFX base
    - Pipeline experience and deeper knowledge in film production environments
    - Writing department documentations and case studies
    - Rendering slap-turntables in Clarisse or Katana with basic shading and textures applied
    - Taking part in technical meetings and steering committees
    - Discussing tool requirements with dev team, providing feedback
    -Optimising assets when required

  • Junior 3D Artist

    INFECTED GmbH

    August 2016 - April 2018
    Hamburg, Germany

    - Working as a Generalist: Gaining knowledge in all departments, mainly responsible for lookdev and solely responsible for grooming in company during that time. Also: Sculpting, modeling, rigging, texturing & CFX (Maya, Zbrush, nHair/nCloth, Yeti, Mari, Quixel & Substance)
    - Environment Generation: Scatter (Mash, xGen), Scan clean-up, working with mega scans
    - Main render software: Arnold, Redshift
    - Working in ACES CG
    - Responsible for photo scan generation and clean-ups (photo & lidar scans)
    - Real-time VR visualisations in Unreal 4
    - Particle systems and FX, such as snow (+snow on assets, ice)

  • Freelance 3D Generalist

    Freelance

    September 2014 - March 2015
    Hamburg, Germany

    - Building and rendering a simulated and animated 3D creature (sculpting & modeling, rigging, CFX and lighting)
    - Working on film sets

  • 3D Artist

    Daedalic Entertainment

    July 2014 - December 2014
    Hamburg, Germany

    - Building real-time assets and environments
    - Gaining real-time engine knowledge, polygon & performance management and optimisation
    - FX workflows in Unreal and Unity
    - Writing shaders in Unity
    - PBR workflows
    - building effects like dust, fire and smoke with the internal particle system in a cartoon style using hand painted sprites utilising the fx emitters
    - Creation of high polygon models in zBrush
    - Hand-painted texturing and concept art projections
    - Matte paintings

  • 3D & Conceptartist

    MobileBits GmbH

    January 2013 - March 2013
    Hanover, Lower Saxony, Germany

    - Character Concept Art
    - Photobashing & Concept Development for character and environments
    - 3D modeling based on 2D images
    - Hand-painted textures
    - Working with the company internal game engine

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Education

  • Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Media Design / Computer Graphics

    Hochschule Hannover

    2012 - 2016

  • Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Media Design

    University of Applied Science Hanover

    November 2011 - November 2015

  • High School Diploma in Artistic & Scientific Focus

    Bismarck High School (Hanover)

    November 2004 - November 2011