Pixar Internship

During the summer of 2022, I was a Pixar Undergraduate Program (PUP) Intern.

PUP is a Technical Director program that covers the entire Pixar CG pipeline. Each week, we learned a different part of the pipeline including: layout, set dressing, modeling, shading, lighting, rigging, and effects.

At the end, the 10 of us in the program had two weeks to create a short film together. Afterwards, I had 8 days to complete an individual final project that I was free to choose.

I set dressed and lit an apartment based on unused concept art from Turning Red.

– Completed in 8 days
– Set dressed in Maya. Layout in Presto. Lighting in Katana. Rendered with Renderman.

– Mentors: Amy Chen & Eman Abdul-Razzak

I was fully responsible for set dressing in Maya.

– Completed in 2 weeks
– Modeled props with Maya: crates, grass blades, boba cup, napkins
– Shaded props with Flow (Pixar’s proprietary procedural shading software): mooncakes, mooncake boxes, crates, plant, soy sauce bottle, dumpling cart, pomegranate, dumpling steam basket, boba cup
– Designed “Moon Festival” poster and posters in the background using Illustrator

I used a frame from Chungking Express as reference to light Mei from Turning Red.
– Lighting done in Katana.

Modeled and shaded a vintage tea strainer using Maya and Flow (Pixar’s proprietary procedural shading software).

Used POP Networks in Houdini to create fireworks shaped like cherry blossoms. Using Nuke,
I composited them over a scene from Coco.

Completed facial rigging on a background character from Turning Red. Rigged in Presto (Proprietary software).