I was the Lead Environment Artist for ILM San Francisco on Twisters, the spiritual successor to Twister (1996). We built, simulated, and rendered full-cg environments using Houdini Solaris & Renderman. Our team’s work was recognized with a VES nomination for environment work, as well as being shortlisted for the overall Visual Effects Oscar.
It was exciting to be part of the ILM team creating work that is such a direct homage to the pioneering VFX done by ILM on the original film!
With the FX team busy working on the titular twisters themselves, those of us with a technical background on the Environment team stepped up to develop procedural workflows to handle all the moving fences, powerlines, grass, and trees.
SF/VAN ENVIRONMENT Team
Production Coordinator
Cecil Wright
Gen Supervisor
Adam Figielski
Gen Leads
Christopher Ford (VAN)
Tim Little (SF)
Gen Artists
Louis Florean
Levi Hedden
Julien Herbey
Ryan Jones
Zsolt Mate
Hogan Metzler
James Miller
Shane Roberts
Kirill Strazhnikov
Orion Terry
Steven Wang