Here is a compilation of highlights from my work on WISH at Walt Disney Animation Studios between 2022 and 2023. I worked primarily as a Look Dev artist (textures, shaders, instancing) in the environments/props department, handling some large environments for a few sequences, as well as creating a variety of props that were reused in various areas throughout the film. My role also involved continued shot support throughout lighting, as well as creating custom textures and USD variants as needed, as the film was very art-directed.
Later, I also worked as a lighting/compositing artist, which involved both regular lighting as well as understanding how to use the compositing tools to keep things in the desired style.
One of my main environments was the interior of the Castle’s halls, the staircases up to the King’s room, doors, mirrors and windows. It involved a lot of careful application of patterns, as well as meticulous work to get the designs and texture work projected onto extremely large, extended windows. (The logos, brickwork, and stained glass came were not modeled to keep flexibility in the surfacing art direction, therefore were fully manually projected down the length of the environment).
Here you can see a nice sense of ‘lost and found’ on the details, keeping things with some textural interest but in a subtle way. Lighting also really brought this environment to life.
Another view from later in the film, showing more of the architecture. In addition to the actual texture work, we were also responsible for how the stylization and linework would look, therefore using a mix of procedural and hand-painted maps to control line thickness and opacity.
Nice shot of the ceiling.
I was responsible for the hero Wishing Tree as well as all the environment surrounding and attached to it — ground, rocks, mosses, vines and flowers. This asset required a lot of careful texture work to explore and land on a desired look for the branches. There are a few types of patterns manually projected to follow all the dozens of branches, and their opacity carefully controlled and refined per shot to look as directed. I also aimed to strike a look with the moss that would feel painterly and soft, and tried to add it tastefully to give a bit of extra color detail to the trees.
A closer up shot showing the tree as well as some of the vines and flowers. I aimed to get subtle color variation and gradation within the leaves/flowers, and also painted a bit of extra brushwork and veins into them.
Here you can see some of my detail work on the leaves and flowers. There is some nice color variation between pinks, purples, and slightly cooler tones on some of the leaves. The gradients and veins also introduce a bit of interest to keep them from going too flat.
View of the wishing tree environment from a distance. I made a custom variant for this kind of wide view to get better control over the look. I also was responsible for the scattering of the purple flowers over the canopies. (The actual layout of the base leaves and vines came from Modeling).
Here at the base of the tree, you can see some more variation on the greens/moss where I added some spots of harder and softer detail to vary it up. There are also some wrinkly details I added in some of the structures to keep things organic.
I worked on a lot of forest shots like this one, manually working on the look of the ground and the scattering of fine vegetation and moss. I created the base ground look and setup to be propagated to other shots, and handled a lot of shot variations as well as some shots with cliffs and mountains. Here this shot shows some of the trees I made.
This is a look dev isolated render of some of the reusable trees I worked on.
Worked on the curly trees (Not the big one on the mid-left), ground environment, fine vegetation/moss. I also did some Layout work as well in some of these shots, which was a fun experience to jump into another work context.
I worked on the ground environment, rocks, as well as the whole barn. Credit goes to my teammate Amanda Blettner who created an initial thatching setup for some other houses that I was able to start from.
Here is a fun little magic flower I textured for a song sequence. I set up the material so it was able to procedurally animate with some pulses and moving sparkles.
This was a fun environment to work on. I did the ground and path in the BG, as well as a lot of the small props. In addition, I did the look on all the buildings. An original version of them already existed, but they were reused in this layout and meant to be retextured as a more rustic version. So I incorporated things like the shingle look, added the plank divisions too. (none of them were modeled). The arch on the right I also added all the bricks manually through texturing.
In the opening sequence, some visitors land at the harbor of the city. This environment was not my main focus on the film compared to the castle halls or the forest work, but I did texture the boat, the main harbor stairs, brickwork, as well as the arch structure — pretty much everything in this shot besides the buildings from the mid-right-center towards the back.
Here’s an isolated lookdev render of the docks that shows it in a bit more detail as well as some parts that don’t really get seen. I like how I got a lot of variation and natural look on the posts.
Here is a lookdev render of the center of the arch area. This was actually particularly challenging because none of the brickwork was modeled (keeping things flexible before Art landed on a concept). Therefore, I built the brickwork, as well as the radial brickwork with certain alternating white brick patterns all in texture, which took some time. I also textured the small stand/welcome prop on the bottom right.
Here is a wide lookdev render of the hero ship that goes towards the harbor.
Multiple other ships I textured, most of which didn’t make it into the film.
The steering wheel of the hero ship.
Reusable barrel that was an early prop example and also used a lot for set dressing.
One of the several props I worked on in the marketplace environment inside the city grounds.
A prop that was used in a shot telling the story of the King. It was fun giving it a nice hand painted look and incorporating all the design work.
One of the several shots I lit in one of the sequences where the King goes out to speak to his people.
A shot I lit of the side characters speaking to the King.
A shot I lit of Magnifico being upset.
This is a key shot I lit where Star gives Asha some magic sparkles onto her dress.