About
A bit about who I am and how I got here.
I'm a software engineer in animation and visual effects, with 20+ years across the industry in roles ranging from animator and rigger to pipeline TD and software engineer. I enjoy building the tools and systems that help artists create digital creatures and worlds you see in films like Madagascar 3 and Avatar: Fire and Ash.
Today I work as Senior Software Engineer at Wētā FX in Wellington, New Zealand, focusing on creature and costume simulation pipeline — building the infrastructure that lets artists work at the scale these films demand.
What I do
Achieving plausible realism in creatures for movies requires them to be built in an anatomically precise way — skeleton, muscles, fat, fascia, skin — with costumes, hair, and fur layered on top. Add motion capture or hand animation for face and body, throw in natural elements like water, wind, or fire, and you have one of the most computationally demanding problems in film production. My job, as part of the Creatures pipeline team at Wētā FX, is to make that process as procedural and efficient as possible.
In practice that means a few things: keeping artist-facing tools responsive and performant when loading complex simulation and bake data; building pipeline systems that are procedural enough to only regenerate what's changed rather than reprocessing everything from scratch; versioning and tracking simulation and bake data so we know what to keep and discard, and everything is reviewable.
One of the most computationally demanding problems in film production — and my job is to make it as efficient as possible.
Most of this is built in Python, integrating in-house and third-party simulation solvers, render engines, and data formats to support workflows across DCCs like Maya and Houdini.
How I got here
I started my career in Bengaluru in the early 2000s as an animator at Paprikaas Studios, a small studio producing children's TV series for broadcasters in Korea and France. It was a humble beginning, but it was where I first learnt the art of giving life to characters on screen.
From there I moved to Prana Studios in Mumbai, which became the first real turning point. I joined as a tool developer, writing scripts to automate and standardise rig setups for Disney's Tinker Bell. Over time I grew into a Rigging Lead on its sequels, and eventually Head of Rigging — managing the team, bidding projects, and collaborating across departments to find and fix inefficiencies in production. Realising how much a well-designed pipeline could improve the way artists worked made me want to build one.
The opportunity came when Dreamworks opened a unit under Technicolor in Bengaluru. I joined as a Technical Director, working on Crowds pipeline across six years and many productions including Shrek Forever After, Madagascar 3, Penguins of Madagascar, How to Train Your Dragon, and a couple of holiday TV specials.
It was a formative stretch. I got to visit the DreamWorks studios in Los Angeles and San Francisco, work directly with teams there, and understand how technology and pipeline teams collaborate to build and run production pipelines at that scale.
From there the path took me further to Animal Logic in Sydney as Performance TD for the Lego Ninjago and Lego Batman movies, then to Base FX in Xiamen as Lead Pipeline TD for first animated feature Wish Dragon — I played an instrumental role in establishing parts of their new animation pipeline.
And eventually to Wētā FX in Wellington, which was always the dream. For anyone working in this industry, it's hard not to be in awe of what the studio has built — Academy Awards for The Lord of the Rings, Avatar, and dozens of others. Since joining in 2019 I've been part of two Academy Award winning productions myself — Avatar: The Way of Water and Avatar: Fire and Ash — and many more great shows. It's been a truly humbling experience working alongside industry vetarans.
Backstory
None of this was planned — but looking back, the signs were always there.
Growing up, I was drawn to a few things: art, science, computers, and the special effects in movies and music videos. As it turned out, these became the core of what I do in and out of work.
Art was never formal — no classes, no training, just a compulsion to make things. My clearest memories are of chalk carving during classroom breaks: chess pieces, cannons, and a linked chain carved from a single piece of chalk that I was particularly proud of. I'd gather tools from wherever I could find them — files from my uncle's opticals shop, pins, drill bits of various sizes. Nothing purpose-built, just whatever worked. That love of making things with my hands just keeps coming back finding new forms.
Much of my curiosity came from the people around me. My dad, an engineer with a love of astronomy, bought me many science books and taught me about stars, planets, and celestrial objects. My relative, a scientist at the Indian Space Research Organisation had electronics and science kits at home that he was happy to share and explain. That engrained the habit of taking things apart and asking how they worked.
Computers arrived at my school when I was around twelve. I was immediately hooked to playing games like Pac-Man and Prince of Persia, but later also to programming. Telling a machine what to do and watching it respond felt like magic! Around the same time I was fascinated by films like Terminator 2, Aliens, and Jurassic Park. I wondered how they made them — the creatures, the morphing metal, the dinosaurs.
Rajiv, my school friend still calls me a right-brainer — and he's not entirely wrong. But I've always needed both engineering and art. Neither feels complete without the other.
Outside of work
In my spare time I'm into fitness, reading, listening to podcasts, and getting outside. I've also been increasingly drawn to investing and economics — an interest that arrived late but has turned out to be one of the most intellectually stimulating rabbit holes I've fallen into. The Interests section is where I write about all of it.