Tony Chai  
 
   
 
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Experience

 

Walt Disney Animation Studios
http://www.disneyanimation.com/
March 10 - Present


Effects Technical Director
Frozen (2013), Wreck-it Ralph (2012), Tangled Ever After (2012)

Developed tools in Houdini/Maya to support heavy fx datasets for lighting to use seamlessly in Maya. Also helped develop techniques to automate fx templates in front-end departments such as animation. Mentored other TDs and ATDs to complete pipeline/support tasks throughout the shows.

Lighting Assistant Technical Director

Prep and Landing: Naughty vs Nice (2011), Tangled (2010)
Pipeline data management between lighting and effects. Developed complete publish process for lighting to pick up GL visualization of procedural elements. Rendered 2k lighting shots and composited stereoscopic shots.

Stereo Artist / General Assistant Technical Director

Lion King 3-D (2011)
Stereoscopic compositing and support. Wrote scripts to convert shots from Disney’s legacy compositing software to Shake. Created depth maps in the original artwork layers to final shot.

soVoz
http://www.sovoz.com
Software Developer - Virtual Locomotion Controller
October 09 - February 10

Developed an immersive application for a virtual controller [boots, hip sensor, head-mounted display] to be used with a motorcycle racing game on an elliptical exercise machine.

Chai Productions
http://www.chai-productions.com
Founder
January 03 – July 11
Founder of Chai Productions, an independent group dedicated to producing viral videos and other multimedia on the internet. Released videos combine video editing, music, graphics, and animation.

 

Education

University of Pennsylvania, Penn Engineering/Penn CIS
Masters of Science in Engineering in Computer Graphics and Game Technology 12/2009
Relevant Courses: Computer Animation, Computer Graphics, Game Design and Development, 3D Modeling, Physically-Based Animation, Engineering Entrepreneurship

University of California Irvine, College of Engineering
Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering 03/2008
Honors: Dean’s Honor List 04-06
Relevant Courses: Graphics (OpenGL), Algorithm Design, Electronics, Computer Architecture

 

Technical

Languages: C++, Python, Hython, MEL, Qt, Java, C, OpenGL, LC-3, MIPS, HTML

Applications: Houdini, Maya, RenderMan, Nuke, Android App Development, VICON Motion Capture, Gamebryo, ZBrush, Adobe Premiere/After Effects/Photoshop, Arduino Microcontroller

 

Projects

  • Maya Plug-in
    Wrote a Maya Plug-in that automatically rigs a biped character. Based on Baran’s SIGGRAPH 2007 Pinnochio paper [Automatic Rigging and Animation of 3D Characters].
  • Motion Capture
    Experience with UPenn’s SIG Motion Capture Lab. Captured various self-motions in VICON Nexus and used the exported BVH data to design a character controller.
  • Rigid Body System
    Wrote an impulse-based rigid body system, including broadphase and narrowphase collision detection/resolution, contact resolution, gravity, and friction. Narrowphase collision detection based on SIGGRAPH 2003 paper [Nonconvex Rigid Bodies with Stacking].
  • Curve Editor
    Wrote a curve editor for Bezier curves, Hermite curves, and B-splines. User can edit/drag control points to see how it affects the interpolated points accordingly.
  • Automatic Guitar Tuner
    Designed and invented an automatic guitar tuner that twists the pegs of a guitar to the correct pitch when plucked.
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    Additional

    Member of The Animation Guild Union Local 839 IATSE
    Member of ACM Special Interest Group in Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH)
    Panel member of Music Teachers’ Association of California (MTAC) Certificate of Merit

    Languages: Fluent in English and Chinese, Basic conversational in Spanish
    Overseas Living Experience: USA, Taiwan, Japan, China