Fàbrica Endins
"Fàbrica Endins" was a full CG short film of 67 shots and 6:47 minutes, made by a team of four junior artists in just 7 months and with a very limited budget. My role in the project ended up being key: in addition to participating as an artist, I took on the responsibility of supervising and coordinating production to ensure we could reach the final result. Despite all the limitations, I am proud of the level we managed to achieve. The animations ended up more basic than desired because we didn't have a dedicated animator, but in all other areas we achieved a solid and coherent finish.
Taking on the role of VFX Supervisor
The complexity of the project, and the fact that almost every shot occurred in a different location within the factory, forced us to build a clear and efficient workflow from scratch. I had to take on the role of VFX Supervisor to organize the process, standardize the pipeline, and ensure the entire team could move forward without blockages.
I handled the layout of all scenarios, lighting, rendering, and composition. I also modeled and textured numerous assets to complete the sequence.
An optimized pipeline to survive
I decided to bet on a workflow based on USD and Solaris, which gave us the flexibility to move scenes between applications, including the possibility of opening them in Unreal Engine if render times with Karma XPU became unsustainable. I also set up an internal render farm using Deadline and the office equipment. Even so, many technical challenges arose: some geometries were not optimized for production, and I had to correct them personally from lighting to be able to render on time. I developed several internal tools in Houdini to automate USD export with its corresponding lookdev, ensuring consistency and reducing team errors.
Maximizing visual quality
Although the circumstances were complicated and resources limited, I wanted to bet on realistic global rendering through Karma XPU and careful lighting. I knew that if we raised the visual base from lighting, then in composition we could give it a final push to approach a cinematic finish. In Nuke I worked on colors, integration, and atmosphere to unify the entire sequence. This was especially important because each block of shots was located in a different part of the factory, recreating different industrial processes of the era.
What I learned
This project taught me more than any course:
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The absolute importance of organization and prior planning.
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How to lead a team under pressure without losing technical direction.
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How to maintain quality even when budget and time work against you.
Despite the difficulties, the entire team grew tremendously. The experience we took from here is something you don't learn anywhere else.
If I could do it again…
With the perspective I have now, I would change several elements of the workflow. The first would be to bet on Eevee in Blender, which would have reduced months of rendering and would have allowed us to do more creative iterations. That extra time I would invest in composition in Nuke, where good integration can elevate the final result without depending so much on departments like modeling or texturing.
Final result
The complete project is available on YouTube, along with the four shots I can show publicly due to confidentiality issues.