FX Reel - Stylized

CONTACT INFO: ollie.y.yao@gmail.com

1. Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender

Responsible for 2D and 3D effects animation. This selection of shots was created within a challenging hybrid 2D/3D pipeline, requiring constant communication with production to ensure each shot's specific needs were met. Effects were built in Houdini and rendered in Karma, using a variety of custom setups driven by NDC (normalized device coordinates) to keep the work sitting correctly in both 2D and 3D space. Throughout, my focus was on enhancing and supporting the 2D character animation — paying close attention to detail and timing to keep the effects feeling satisfying and integrated with the performance.

2. Zootopia 2 Effects Animation & Effects Apprenticeship

Created at Walt Disney Animation Studios. All shots animated in Houdini, and rendered with Hyperion. The style of Zootopia 2 called for cartoon-y realism - physics that still obeyed real life principles, while also directed and sculpted to deliver on comedy. One of the most important instincts I honed was knowing when to let the effects steal the show, and when to scale back to allow the acting and story to shine through.

I executed on a wide variety of effects on the film, most notably a large snow simulation when Nick and Judy drive a bulldozer through a snowy hedge maze, creating a "catnip" softbody simulation to cap off the first sequence, and creating and executing the FX rig for Nibbles' wood chips, balancing the timing of my effects with the needs of the story.

During my apprenticeship I tried effects with many different techniques, including fire, water, snow, rigid body dynamics, cloth, soft bodies, and smoke.

3. Ode to Playing Outside - Short Film

Responsible for all aspects. Ode to Playing Outside is a mini short I directed and created in 2026, using a variety of mixed media animations. For the bubble effect, I animated it in 2D using Procreate Dreams, then brought it into Houdini to give the bubbles a textured paintmap look, using a custom UV setup in order to have the textures 'stick' to the bubbles instead of sliding behind them.

4. Twin Sparks - Animated Short Film

Twin Sparks is an animated short film I directed with Heather Yun, which premiered in May 2023. I also created the stylized look of the film from concept to completion, designing the look of the effects animation in Photoshop and using Houdini, Blender, and Nuke to bring our vision of a moving painting to life. 

5. Effects Animation Experiments

Responsible for all aspects. Various effects animation experiments in ToonBoom Harmony and Procreate Dreams.

Music is "I Lost All My Eggs" by Shawn Wasabi.