Hi, I'm Sam Moorfield, a CGI artist based in Australia. I've spent the past 15 years making and directing stereographic content for IMAX, documentaries and television.

[email protected]

Houdini FX
Houdini has replaced most add-on plugins that extended my dynamics toolset in other packages. I have primarily focused on Houdini's pyroclastic simulation, particle advection, fields and rigid body destruction. As a generalist, I appreciate the power of parametric modelling as well as the extended direct modelling toolset incorporated into Houdini 16.5. I have primarily been rendering with Mantra, however utilize Redshift GPU rendering for a fast iterative workflow when possible. I have ported several scripts that simplified the stereo pipeline over to Houdini as Python shelf tools and digital assets. I currently lean towards completing destructive direct modelling tasks in Maya.

Maya
For most complex direct modelling and UV unwrapping tasks I currently focus on using Maya. Whilst I maintain a preference for 3DsMax's modifier stack approach to certain tasks, the speed afforded by Maya's marking menu system as well as recent updates to modelling and UV tools have proven to be valuable. I primarily use Redshift in Maya for rendering.

3DsMax
I have been using Max since 2003. It has been the the primary 3D package used in the large scale productions I have been involved with between 2004 and 2017. I have worked with several pipeline developers and artists that have come from major Australian based VFX studios. As a result, many pipeline tools, scripts and practices have been incorporated into my workflow over the years. Most notable of these are Render Pass Manager (RPM), VRay, Phoenix FD and Forest Pack Pro). Max has also served as a great platform for developing my own Maxscript tools to automate many of the repetitive or complex tasks unique to stereoscopic film production.

Zbrush
I incorporate ZBrush into my workflow wherever possible as the sculpting experience for concept work or organic asset development is excellent. Houdini and Maya's re-topology tools are both excellent and pair well with my ZBrush workflow. Zbrush has been invaluable for Nebula and Landscape sculpting, but has also been utilized for creature design and basic polypainting.

Substance Painter
Substance Painter has become as a very useful tool for creating complex texture sets. The UDIM workflow has improved to a point that large screen digital assets can be textured to a high standard using substance's 'geometry aware' set of filters. The addition of Sparse Virual Textures to handle many high resolution UDIM channels has further encouraged me to favour Substance Painter's creative workflow.

Fusion
Blackmagic Fusion (previously Eyeon Fusion) has been my compositor of choice since 2012. Although now incorporated into Davinci Resolve, the standalone Fusion product continues to serve me well as a fast and clean node based compositor. I have created several Python and Lua scripts to simplify or extend Fusion's native stereo workflow.

Resolve
I was introduced to Davinci Resolve as a suitable non-linear editor to use for conforming giant screen stereo productions. Resolve has proven to have a excellent stereo workflow toolset across 3 IMAX productions. The functionality as an editing, colour processing and delivery platform has proven to be very useful. I continue to use Resolve for delivering projects in many different formats including IMAX Laser, IMAX 15/70 film and DCI spec digital cinema. Across multiple large scale projects I have developed a strong practical understanding of managing colour for CGI and Live Action footage. This extends to current RED Helium 8K footage processed with a IPP2 or ACES workflow.

Redshift
With access to large CPU only render farms provided by the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, VRay proved itself as a great render package. Working as a freelance artist, I have found Redshift to be a great GPU accelerated alternative. Although I appreciate the native Houdini effects support offered by Mantra, I have found it to be a worthwhile exercise to adapt Houdini scenes for rendering with Redshift.

Vray
I transitioned from Mental Ray to VRay (1.4) in 2005. I continued to almost exclusively use VRay until 2018 (3.6). 8K 3D IMAX frames are 8192x6144px per eye at 24fps, as a result I have become very familiar with the best workflow for optimizing large scenes for efficient render passes. VRay has been the primary render installed across render farms I have managed.

Phoenix FD
After a period using Fume FX and Krakatoa for space based simulations (volumetric nebula, galaxies etc.) I transitioned to the overhauled version of Phoenix FD (v3.0) and was extremely impressed with the artist friendly workflow and much improved voxel and flip based simulation engines. Phoenix quickly transitioned from a tool intended for a single shot, to being used in some way on almost every sequence. I have provided feedback across nightly builds of Phoenix between 2014-2018 and seen several requested workflow enhancements implemented into the plugin.

Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop has been at the core of much of my graphics, painting, texture and storyboard work since 2003.

After Effects
Adobe After Effects was my compositing package of choice pre-2012 and was used on the IMAX project Hidden Universe. Whilst I now prefer node-based compositing (especially for stereo work), I continue to use After Effects for developing motion graphics and 2D animation. I also find After Effects to be an efficient option for processing frames across non GPU equipped render clusters as a command line tool.

Premiere Pro
The first IMAX project I was involved with, Hidden Universe (2012), was conformed in Premiere Pro. Several short films prior to this were also edited and conformed using Premiere. Whilst I consider myself to be very familiar with the package, I find Davinci Resolve has replaced Premiere where GPU accelerated NLE is an option.

Deadline
Whilst Muster was the render manager deployed across the render farm at The Center for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, I exclusively use Deadline across my personal render cluster. I have a functional understanding of how to set up and configure a render environment with submission tools for Autodesk, Blackmagic and Adobe products. I also have experience setting up custom sanity checks specific to my current pipeline.

Muster
I have managed 3 render farms over 7 years that use Muster as the primary dispatch and management system. Whilst I do not choose to use Muster currently, It did offer a deep level of management. Custom submission scripts helped to streamline a stereo rendering workflow not native to Muster.

Vue
I have experience using Vue X-Stream with 3DsMax and Vue as a standalone product. I currently prefer to use Forest Pack Pro in 3DsMax, Houdini Terrain Tools, or Maya MASH networks to develop large instanced landscapes. I consider Vue to be a useful tool for developing static terrain matte paintings and Ozone driven sky plates when HDRI is not suitable.