For this project, I was tasked with creating 3D models, materials, and animations for these small AR vignettes that are meant to look as if they are inside these custom-built Lego warehouse structures created by Lego Master Kevin. The models were meant to be low-poly and simple due to their small size and modest budget. I used speed modeling techniques in Blender to create the geometry and UVs. Put together some simple Photoshop textures and applied materials with some minor custom shader work to get some easy panning textures for the belts. I then created custom animation clips, timelines, and used the plugin Curvy for some looping animation along complex moving belts. Curvy was most useful during the Joey Pouch Sorter animation as I was able to utilize complex curvy logic to create a branching curve system that had custom logic to allow objects to jump between multiple curves procedurally without getting reversed or breaking sequence. On the Cross Belt Sorter animation, I decided to utilize Unity’s Shuriken VFX system. This allowed me to spawn boxes that could interact with colliders in the scene to push boxes down from the top belts with animated paddles.

This project was created with help from Lead Developer Steven Billingslea, UI/UX Designer Chloe Kim, and Creative Director Josh Bray

I worked closely with Unity Developer Kim Burk to create this AR interactive for Amazon Web Services’ Aerospace division. For this project, I create custom 3D models, textures, Shaders, and VFX to create a cool digital globe with floating satellite trails. The satellites were hand-modeled, and the shaders used for the globe were created quickly, drawing on learnings from previous Globe-related projects. The Satellite Trail VFX required some finesse as AR tracking would cause the trails to bend and break in unpredictable ways as the globe moved in space. This was solved using VFX property binders to pull the satellite position and allow the VFX object itself to stay stationary instead of being parented to the satellites or AR-tracked model.

For this project, I worked alongside Unity Developer Zac King, Creative Director Steve Deitz, Designer Chloe Kim, and Visual Content Artist Justin Foshee to create an interactive experience for Amazon Web Services’ Education division. We worked with the client to bring their vision of a populated college environment to life. I modeled and blocked out a low-poly city environment, set up lighting and materials to give it color, created some simple 3D animations, and put together a series of particle VFX using Unity VFX Graph to add pop and flair to each building selection. Once the VFX was created, I created detailed handoff instructions to our Dev team for implementation, making sure we were in sync, and the FX were and final 3D look was to the client’s liking.

For this project, I worked alongside Unity Developer Zac King, Creative Director Steve Deitz, Designer Chloe Kim, and Visual Content Artist Justin Foshee to create an interactive experience for Amazon Web Services’ Government division, showing how AWS can help in a severe weather event. I started by blocking out the city in 3D, basing the building designs on a model of the city of Houston. I modified and created a custom mesh to create the final city model. For this project, I utilized Enviro, a Unity Plugin meant to help manage and generate realistic sky & weather. This plugin allowed me to create custom weather events, darkening skies, adjusting cloud cover, and spawning rain particles, which were hand-modified to simulate a hurricane. This project also required several custom shaders used to control custom emissive highlights and a panning water texture.

This was created as an addition to the AWS Aerospace game created for Re:Invent 2024. I created this animation working alongside 3D Lead Steven Craven, who helped create the Space station scene and worked on character animation. I created the intro satellite scene utilizing custom shaders, models, and particle simulation. I oversaw rendering and final compositing.

For this project, I was tasked with creating several 3D printed protein structures for Amazon Web Services’ Healthcare division. With the goal of giving away these printed models at the Amazon Re:Invent 2024 convention in Las Vegas, Nevada. I used open-source NIH 3D models as a base for accuracy and sufficient complexity, but to get these models ready for 3D printing, I needed to fix, clean, and prepare the 3D geometry. I started with fixing the normals, removing floating faces, and mocking up orientation/base designs. I then brought the geometry into ZBrush and utilized inflation, smoothing, sculpting, remeshing, and decimation to create models that could be printed as one solid piece on a standard UV Resin printer. There were 4 unique protein models which each of which required a unique strategy and considerations when preparing for printing. Printing 3 of each model, standing at roughly 7 inches tall, resulting in 12 total resin prints, which were painted by a professional model painter, Timothy Voyles (www.paintstationminis.com).

In early 2023, I had the privilege to help design and render the new NCAA official beach volleyball. Molten was planning to pitch a new volleyball design to the NCAA, so between myself and Creative Director Marco Rodriguez we created several designs with experimental looks and patterns. Drawing inspiration from the most recent Wilson Volleyball, we attempted to use the corners of the volleyball panel faces to create triangular patterns, which resulted in this tri-fold flame flower design that was used for final production. The official NCAA ball is now available on shelves and being used in official NCAA Tournaments starting Summer of 2025.

For this project, I worked with Unity Developer Zac King, 3D Lead Steven Craven, and our CEO Steve Deitz to create a real-time 3D visualization of Cancer research provided by Caris Life Sciences. We used JSON files of data points to spawn a static particle cloud with colored nodes based on cancer type. For this, I utilized vertex shading to create baked shadows and lighting for each particle to optimize for performance with custom Shader Graph Unlit Materials. I created an animating hexagon floor pattern that loops endlessly for an ambient effect. I create a custom HDRP lighting volume & custom VFX Graph particles utilizing branded hexagon particles that float ambiently while in the scene.

Working alongside Unity Developer Kim Burk, I created another 3D globe asset, with a cool technical texture and a custom Unlit Fresnel shader. I spent a lot of time generating a very specific Plexus effect, utilizing clever particle spawning techniques and line drawing based on particle ID to draw rather than drawing based on distance, which was computationally taxing and visually limiting.

For this project, I utilized Unity HDRP lighting and rendering volumes for visual post-processing. I created visual particles fx and versatile shader systems that allow clients and companies to swap lighting & color pallets for a more catered, branded visual effect.

Technical Art - Nicholas Garces
Unity Developer - Zac King
Creative Direction - Marco Rodriguez

For this experience, I teamed up with Lead Developer Steven Billingslea, & 3D Artist Chris Wen to create a to-scale AR experience displaying the size and scale of a West Texas Carbon Capture facility that has just started construction. I utilized high-resolution 3D models for high-quality rendering. These models were then optimized with the help of Chris Wen. I created a real-time HDRP lighting volume and custom shaders to create an interactive real-time AR experience.

For this project, I had the incredible opportunity to work with a Carbon Capture Facility manufacturer and research team known as Oxy to help visualize their new Direct Air Capture facility being manufactured in Odessa, Texas.

For this project, I worked with a Unity Developer, Kim Burke, to create an interactive globe with selectable points that could be used on a large touch screen during a convention for AWS Healthcare. I modeled and textured a globe with a techy dot pattern.

I made use of Unity Shader Graph nodes to create a semi-transparent material that also utilized my own custom fresnel-based node group to give a hard and bright rim light to the globe.

I used Unity VFX Graph to create a plexus effect with spawned particles and lines drawn between particles based on proximity as they slowly rotate the globe to imitate a digital cloud layer. I also created a dynamic particle floor that animates and undulates ambiently during the experience.

I utilized Blender to 3D model a DNA strand with a noise displacement to give it a bumpy appearance. Once again, utilizing Unity Shader Graph to dial in a material to fit the aesthetics and highlight the bumps and rim lighting.

Finally, I made adjustments to HDRP settings, lighting volume, and camera to ensure optimal quality and visual appearance when rendering.

For this project, I utilized Unity HDRP, VFX Graph, and Shader Graph to create a customizable, flexible, and functional dynamic butterfly fx system. It utilized multi-point spline sampling and custom vector-based algorithms to keep butterflies oriented tangent to the input spline. This system is made to take a wide variety of shapes, curves, and particles with exposed properties that could give artists more control based on custom parameters at real-time.

For this animation, I worked with a very talented character animator named Kyle Femath. He sent me his fully animated character in Maya with some camera change animation and basic scene layout. I then exported the 3D assets to be used in Blender where I assigned and created custom textures and shaders. I brought the character animation over utilizing an alembic cache which allowed me to maintain all blendshapes and Maya-specific rig deformations that might not have transferred between programs through an fbx. From there I continued to create and assign materials as well as a custom lighting rig & backplate. For this project, Kyle requested I add blood to the character’s hand as he wipes the body of the monster that lays before him. I used texture painting in Blender to generate a texture mask that I could use to blend a blood material over the Character’s UV’d skin material. I used this same technique to paint blood splatter onto the various other assets in the scene to add realism to this animation. Finally, I added some DOF and composited some post-processing bloom and color. This was an enjoyable project to work on, and it gave me the opportunity to really stretch my creative muscles to help heighten an already impressive animation.

Character Animation by Kyle Femath
Layout by Kyle Femath

Lighting by Nicholas Garces
Shaders/Materials by Nicholas Garces
Rendering by Nicholas Garces
Compositing by Nicholas Garces

I helped to visualize a, now completed, bridge concept for Grand Prairie Epic Central. Concepting and design by 900lbs with engineering and manufacturing handled by Enddesign. I worked closely with our design team at 900lbs to visualize our bridge concept in 3D. This included custom 3D modeling, surfacing, lighting, and rendering utilizing Arnold and Maya. Prismatic glass shader created by Steven Craven, 3D Lead.

For this project, I worked together with Lead Developer Steven Billingslea and Design by Ossiris Avalos to create a working prototype of a real-time city planning application for the city of Houston. I created custom shaders and real-time post-processing effects to stylize and direct the visual story. I prepared a purchased low poly model of Houston from C4D that had a number of necessary fixes and modifications to get it ready for Unity. I separated meshes and materials based on performance needs and functionality, & created custom VFX graphs with exposed customizable variables that could be referenced and changed in play to display visual feedback for sliders and statistics.

For this project, I utilized Unreal Engine 5 to render a commercial-like vehicle animation. These animations were used as concepts and research for an upcoming project with Ford. I created custom blueprints for vehicle rigs and animation. I utilized and experimented with nested materials and shaders. I created renders comparing and exploring both Luman and Path-Tracing for optimal efficiency and quality.

Rose & Fireworks Particle Simulation - Echo Park Anniversary










Echo Park First Car Animation

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A team of students with, guidance from faculty, created a 3D animated short film from concept to completion. I worked with this team of students as one of two motion graphics artists. I was responsible for creating and animating the ship’s UI within AfterEffects. The lighting department then integrated the image sequence into the final render.

Inspired by and made in collaboration with Emmar Grant

Universal Flower made with Blender Geometry Nodes

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UT Dallas ATEC 48 Hour Animation Blitz
Spring 2019

Credits:

Nicholas Garces - Modeling Artist, Lighting Artist, Composition, Texturing, FX Artist, Creative Director

Faith Daignault - Animation Artist, Texture Artist, Audio Designer, Matte Painter, Producer

Jonathan Wallace - Rigging Artist, Environment Artist, Technical Director