Etherea

In an effort to learn by doing, I joined the Etherea team through my friend and work colleague, Nathan Shipley. I’ve found that it’s hard for me to truly dig into something without a bit of pressure and a deadline, and I really wanted to spend time learning ComfyUI. I had already started some early legwork—getting the software up and running, building workflows from scratch, and watching a lot of YouTube tutorials—to establish some basic image-making and video output pipelines.

While I didn’t have much to show at first beyond a foundational understanding of ComfyUI, along with my more traditional 3D and compositing skill set, Paul generously gave me the opportunity to explore and contribute to the film. I had a few creative breakthroughs while focusing on the storm section, though Brad ultimately laid the groundwork with a strong ComfyUI workflow that brought the team together around a unified way of working.

I was able to contribute a lot on the compositing side—prepping plates in Nuke, refining depth maps, and gradually building up source material for my input material. My GPU (a 4070 Ti) was on the brink of failure the entire time, but after a lot of iteration, a few solid outputs finally emerged, and I was able to up-res the final results.

It was great being a part of such a creative team and inspiring to watch Paul work. His technical background, creative drive, and collaborative spirit has made him a prolific creator in the space.