Life at Penn

 

Update:

Link to my Wedding Invite and Wedding Details.

Link to my demo reel.

7 November 2008:

I am writing this almost nearing the end of my fun-filled tenure at the University of Pennsylvania. Its not quite time to look back at the most exciting period of my life, but I am really satisfied of what I have achieved here, but I know that this was just the beginning of what the future holds for me.

As for this semester, my 3rd one at UPenn, its been a whirlwind affair so far! I have taken 4 courses, am doing a part-time Teaching Assistant job under Dr.Steve Lane for his Computer Animation class, searching for a full-time job after graduation, and trying to have as much fun as possible during this last semester of my school life. So all in all I am generally trying to make the most of my time at UPenn.

In the meantime, I also managed to complete a summer internship at Avalanche Game Studios, Salt Lake City. Avalanche is owned by Disney Interactive Studios, and I was actually working on a project involving both Disney Animation Studios and Avalanche Games. The initial 3 days of this assignment were spent at Disney Animation Studios, and quite frankly those were the 3 most inspiring days of my life, just to be able to walk through those hallowed corridors where Walt himself used to walk, and Ed Catmull still does! But you can read up on my internship experience in detail in one of the sidel inks.

7 March 2008:

I am currently in the middle of the 2nd semester of this course and it has been a fantastic ride so far. The first semester went like a whirlwind, but it was worth all the effort and enjoyment put into it. Subjects like Computer Graphics and Computer Animation really ended up firming up my basics in these fields. Under the guidance of 2 excellent professors, that is, Prof. Norman Badler for Computer Graphics and Dr. Steve Lane for Computer Animation, we were given a perfect platform from where we could launch into this industry. The practicality of the course with its assignments and stress on honing up of fundamentals in these fields is sure to help me in my foray into the graphics industry, whether it be gaming or animation.

So far the 2nd semester is looking even better than the 1st one. We are finally beginning to specialise and building up some pretty nifty applications along the way. GPU Programming, as expected has been a super subject and I am just awestruck by the wonders that can be performed on the GPU these days. But the future is still a long way ahead in this field, and its gonna be a fun ride, and I am doubly glad I hopped onto this one!!

Advanced Computer Graphics and Animation is really helping me build up on my presentation skills with all the SIGGRAPH paper presentations, and to top it up, the Maya Authoring Tool currently under way sure is gonna do me a world of good in the times to come!!

3d Modeling in Maya was always going to be fun and it has definitely lived up to its expectations! And my artistic talents are definitely helping me out in this one... I have learnt that it certainly helps to have the ability to visualise and sketch your concepts onto paper before putting it into 3D!!

Check out the side links to get an idea about some of my projects here at Penn...