Thornton Strolia

3D Generalist (Hard Surface, Lookdev, Lighting)

Consumer Products | Brand Campaign | Entertainment Media

Maya • Substance • Houdini • Solaris • Arnold • Octane • Fusion Studio

I’m a lookdev-rooted 3D generalist specializing in material realism, lighting, and production-ready final imagery. I work across modeling, surfacing, lighting, rendering, and finishing, often within a USD/Solaris workflow, to deliver clean finalized stills and short-form animation. My primary tools are Maya and Houdini (Solaris), rendering in Arnold, Octane, or Karma, with custom automation and tooling in Python/VEX/Lua/Rust where it meaningfully improves iteration, final quality, or pipeline.

Core Strengths:

Look Development & Material Authoring (reference-driven realism)
Lighting (product / studio + real world + cinematic)
USD / Solaris scene assembly & variants (look / shot ready)
Grooming / Fiber (where relevant or necessary)
FX (procedural simulation where it serves the final shot or look)
AOV Strategy & Render Wrangling for Comp-ready delivery
Tooling / Scripting where proving advantageous (Python / Lua / VEX / Rust)

Pipeline:

Pipeline: Modeling and UVs in Maya — Procedural modeling / changes & FX in Houdini — Surfacing and Texturing with Substance Designer / Painter — Materials and Asset Finaling in Solaris (references, payloads, variants) — USD Scene assembly and lighting in Solaris.

Rendering & Delivery: Arnold / Octane / Karma with EXR outputs and clear AOV strategy including IDs and Cryptomattes for Comp ready working files — Compositing and Rebuild with BMD Fusion Studio — Coloring and Editing in Photoshop (stills) / DaVinci (animated / motion).

Collaboration: Comfortable working from notes, maintaining consistent naming and versioning, and iterating quickly and non-destructively (limited breaking changes during upstream revisions).

Some projects are under NDA; breakdowns may still be available upon request.