Builder of…
Companies
Teams
Products
Content
Games
Experiences
Also, I can Code.
To Me, Work isn’t just about the thing you make, It’s about the people you meet along the way. It’s the relationships with them that define you as much as the things you make.
The demo that started it all…
In mid-2013, I made my first VR Demo at DreamWorks Animation to show off what the new Oculus DK1 could do.
I created the most obvious thing to me, who wouldn't want to ride on Toothless and fly around Berk?
I showed it to my new boss, Lincoln Wallen, who had given me the new roll to explore new technology and storytelling for the studio. This demo was one of the first things I made in the new roll. I was eager to show what VR could do for the Studio. I invited two of my friends at the studio Nafees Bin Zafar & Mike Kershner to try it out as well. These are home movies I saved off an old hard drive from the first day of demos I ever gave for what would turn into the Dragon Flight VR adventure a year later.
This first demo went a long way to proving that VR could be used with Dreamworks characters and story and paved the way to expand from the "Brad's Lab" sign I stuck to my door to DreamLab, a real dept.
That’s so crazy it just might Work.
I don’t think of things as impossible, just really really hard. Hard problems can be solved. Sometimes it just involves driving around in a 12,000 sqft warehouse with a prototype strapped to your head.
Sometimes it’s a Kuka Arm lifting you 30’ into the air while you go on a space adventure in VR.
Unique problems require Unique solutions.
It’s not all fun and games.
Wait, no. yes. it is. It totally is. Or at least that’s the goal.
Motion Capture was a big part of my work in the VFX days and it was a joy to bring that to some of our projects as SPACES. Also if you have the chance to be a dinosaur, be a dinosaur.
This is from one of our Dreamworks Animation Motion Capture shoots for Turbo, My son Elijah (6) in a custom mocap suit we made for him. He played the roll of every kid in the crowds of the film. An easy set of shots to find us in is when you watch Turbo, in the crowd you can see Dad’s with kids on their shoulders walking around the Indy 500. That’s us.
How Creativity Shaped VR at DreamWorks
Creativity is at the heart of all the work that I do.
This an amazing opportunity to showcase that work on a big stage in front of so many of the VR pioneers. I was honored and humbled by it.
Test Drive a Dragon
I co-started in this episode of DreamWorks Kids showing off our Dragon Flight VR ride that toured the US.
Alpha Hardware & SDK still being typed?
No Problem. That’s My Jam.
One of my favorite things is to work with new hardware and software. This is a prototype game that I made with very early all-in-one VR headsets that HTC sent us from China. My kids had a blast running around the back yard fighting off the skeletons. It’s amazing to see how far things like Oculus Quest have come in the years since this.
CES 2019
Did you miss CES? Would you like to know what it’s like and what I saw? Enjoy the Brad Show.
July 9th 2016, I was the first person to setup an HTC Vive on an Airplane.
Yes it worked, no it did not work well. Way too much power draw for the seat. The cabin crew asked me to put it away. That said, VR on airplanes is a thing now, and the equipment much smaller.
Mentorship
Something I like to do when I am mentoring someone is show them my work from 20 years ago. I do this for several reasons, one is to remind them that people are not suddenly in their job, They took a path to get to it Another reason is to show how much things have changed and how media and technology changes. This video was scanned off a MiniDV tape just before it was unreadable, it’s 240p and compressed all to hell but it’s the only copy of it I have. There are shots on this video from major motion pictures, those shots look amazing on the big screen and on blu-ray but wow do they look rough on old school tele-transfer to 1/2 tape to VHS to MiniDV. Some day I’ll try and find good transfers of all these films, some of the movies never even made it to home video so who knows.
These things apply to code and games even more than media, It’s hard to get things written long ago to run, the hardware is gone, emulation isn’t perfect. Always be sure that you document for work, you never know when you will want to see it again from the the future.
