Together with the Creative Lab, I helped the team shaping the global campaign for the 2024 Google Pixel 9.
With a completely new design, our objective was to show it in its full beauty, showing its wonderful edges, materials using clever reflections, infusing them with the magic of Gemini, here represented with a shimmer of color that ran through each line.
Going back home every night and relaxing on Procreate, coming up with imperfect animations of imperfect characters
From November 13th to 18th, the world witnessed a dazzling collaboration between Chrome and McLaren on the Sphere, the largest spherical screen in existence. I was fortunate to be part of the creative and motion design team at Google Creative Lab that brought this project to life.
My role wasn’t just about finding the optimal workflow for wrapping a video onto the Sphere’s unique surface. I also had the opportunity to create a full 360-degree animation in Houdini, utilizing an impressive 2 million particles and rendered flawlessly in Redshift – a personal achievement for me!
Furthermore, I spearheaded the development of a simplified version of the animation specifically tailored for the F1 race day. This ensured maximum impact for a wider audience.
The advert captivated millions watching the F1 race live in Las Vegas and garnered an impressive 3 million online shares. It was a truly rewarding experience to be a part of such an innovative and impactful project.
New plants to identify. New care tips to learn. New ways to search in the new Google app.
On this project I was lucky to work with Creative Lab NY on crafting the animations of these three ads.
It appears that my brain functions in a way that leads me to obsess over certain things and turn them into addictions. As a solution, I have decided to embark on a fresh 100-day project. This time, after experiencing several unsuccessful attempts over the past 7 years, I am challenging myself to produce a brief animation utilizing Houdini and Redshift on a daily basis. I am not striving for anything elaborate or excessive, but rather aiming to improve through repeated practice.
And after 100 days, introducing “hallhoucinations”: A Journey of 100 Abstract Animations in 100 Days
Dive into a mesmerizing world of abstract imagery and animations brought to life through the dynamic combination of Houdini and the powerful Redshift render engine. “hallhoucinations” is a visionary project that pushes the boundaries of creativity and showcases the immense potential of these cutting-edge tools.
Prepare to be transported into a world where imagination knows no bounds, where abstract forms dance and morph, and where visual hallucinations become vivid reality. Welcome to “hallhoucinations.”
Below you can click on the static images to reveal the corresponding video.
The work of Google’s security teams mostly happens behind closed doors — whether that be intercepting government backed cyber attacks, or taking on the job of hacking Google to strengthen our defenses. But today, we’re taking you behind the scenes with HACKING GOOGLE, a new six-part docuseries featuring the elite security teams that keep more people safe online than anyone else in the world.
Watch the full series on youtube.
As a member of the in-house team at Creative Lab NYC, I was thrilled to work on episode 002 of the series, where I played a crucial role in developing and creating the cyberviz shots. Utilizing my expertise in cutting-edge software like Houdini 18.5, Cinema4D, and Redshift, I was able to voxelize the flames, creating visually stunning and impactful animations that truly bring the episode to life.
Don’t miss the chance to immerse yourself in the world of Google’s security teams and to witness the behind-the-scenes work that goes into keeping the internet a safer place. You can watch the full series on YouTube and see the incredible work of the security teams, including my contributions, firsthand.
EP000: Operation Aurora
EP001: Threat Analysis Group
EP002: Detection and Response
EP003: Red Team
EP004: Bug Hunters
EP005: Project Zero
starting.
In March 2020, the whole world stopped. We locked ourselves in our homes and tried to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe.
We had many worries and difficult moments. As parents, we also experienced a new relationship with our children. We feared for their health, not knowing that they were the ones keeping us alive and safe.
Sophie Lewis wrote a wonderful poem about this feeling.
She approached me and asked if I would be interested in making a film out of it.
Pierre Buttin was our first choice of illustrator to work with. He created a wonderful set of characters and monsters as well as a complete storyboard.
crafting.
Nicola Destefanis began developing the look of the characters and the entire film. We speculated about using a Risograph look, but struggled to make sense of it. The bold lines and simple shapes seemed stronger to us.
He modeled and rigged the 3D characters and also started blocking some of the animation.
hitting a wall.
After the initial quick push, we hit a wall, when we had our first full film done, with rough animations. The film resulted ubiquitous and not clear in the delivery. Most and foremost, the whole world was changing and as much the virus was evolving during the pandemic, the relationships between us in the same drastic ways. A surge of no vax, no mask, no lockdown movement proved to be the real enemy in what we were trying to say.
We had to rethink and be clearer in our narrative and of course in the visuals as well.
a new script.
As we had less and less time to work on this project, and fewer and fewer people involved, we often thought of abandoning it altogether. Our lives had already been overtaken by a second wave and some health problems were the cherry on top of the cake we had baked ourselves.
But with a new script and a new, probably simpler visual approach using both 3D and 2D techniques to tell this complex but important story, we felt like we were back on track. We had to “just do it.”
It took us another 9 months to get to a good stage.
delivering.
With a third revision of the script, which began at the start of the pandemic crisis, we wanted this film to be set in the moment of delivery. We wanted to talk about how it’s okay to be afraid of the uncertain times and how the ones we are supposed to be protecting are the ones keeping us moving forward, keeping us sane and strong.
For the past 9 months I have been working on the 3D alone, trying to salvage as much as I can from the beautiful animations Nicola Destefanis made in April 2020. I have learned the hard way how to work in Adobe Animate and create frame by frame hand drawn animations. These are certainly not perfect, but I liked the overall rough look of them. And how they integrated with the 3D.
A faint texture added a little something extra to it.
The music is Gaia by Marcus Grimm, courtesy by La Valigetta.
credits.
- Gasta, 3d animations and 2d animations, direction
- Sophie Lewis, script, voice over
- Pierre Buttin, illustrations
- Nicola Destefanis, 3d characters model, rig and animations
- Rebecca Smith, sound design (Platform Post)
- Marcus Grimm, music composer
- La Valigetta, music label
press.
Featured on Wired Italia.
Featured on Art Tribune.
Ongoing series of hand drawn gifs done in Procreate.
You can search and find the gifs as transparent stickers on instagram and whatsapp if you search for @gasta in the gif search.
Camera Switches is a new Android accessibility feature that can help people with speech and motor impairments navigate their phones using eye movements and facial gestures, customised to their range of movement. Find out more at https://g.co/cameraswitches
On this project I created the 3d Pixel 5 phone and its animations.
Done in C4D, rendered in Redshift.
27 million satellite images from the past 37 years, 2 million hours of rendering done inside Google’s carbon neutral data centers, the new Google Earth Timelapse features time as the 4th dimension to explore our planet.
Done entirely at Creative Lab London, I was responsible of setting the correct pipeline between Google Earth Studio, enabled with experimental features and After Effects.
I then animated 3d cameras in Google Earth Studio, rendering on multiple machines, 4k imagery that has been then used for the first time in January at Davos 2020 on the main led screen, which used a 2:1 ratio and a 4k resolution.
I also delivered assets for other screens in Davos, one huge video that was looping between the three main ones and more clips used by scientists.
The project received a huge media coverage and it’s still going strong on Youtube and magazines.
A collection of experiences made with WebXR, which brings together AR and VR on the web to make them more convenient and widely accessible.
We’re featuring some of our own projects here and encourage everyone to grow the collection and push the boundaries of what’s possible with WebXR.
I worked on some of the 3d transitions, intro and endframe, where I created a 3d Pixel 5 phone with some 3d light effects.
I also did some beauty work on the footage, to replace a sky.
Look to Speak is an Android app from ‘Experiments with Google‘ which enables people who have language and motor impairments to use their eyes to select pre-written phrases and have them spoken aloud. Keyword Post.
I made the tutorial (in app and youtube), some gifs for the media comms pack and some clean ups on the main film.
I created the motion visual identity of Teach from Home, a hub of information and tools to help teachers to teach from home during the CV-19 crisis.
10 animations, starting from Starling Bank logo, with a strong narrative in each of them.
5 pattern animations using the Starling elements, constantly moving.
Character explorations and extreme cuteness
Your Luxury Portrait is a visual installation created by Google Creative Lab, showcasing the low light capabilities of the Google Pixel 2. With mirrors and lenses that mimic the Google Pixel 2 camera, Your Luxury Portrait invites the audience to create a personal representation of their own luxury.
Working with the Google Creative Lab team, I’ve been responsible of envisioning and delivering the animation for the window display at Selfridges, on Oxford Street.
Using some pictures shot on Pixel 2, I played extensively with expressions in order to build an organic animation that would link to the actual installation.
Draw to art is another incredible installation made by Google Creative Lab.
Using machine learning, you can draw a simple sketch to search through thousands of artworks and see what comes up.
On this project I used Houdini to visualise the actual distribution of the 122000 features in the 3d space.
Using a simple setup, I imported the coordinates (generated in python) and applied the relevant artwork texture to each plane.
I then used After Effects to explain how the program works.
Follow the light.
A new world awaits.
Wild is the debut single from the instrumental artist Marcus Grimm.
Recorded in the suggestive Teatro delle Voci in Treviso and mastered at the Abbey Road studios in London.
The video, a journey into a dreamy world fully created in CGI, is directed and animated by Gasta, awarded London-based visual artist.
Done in C4D, Arnold, After Effects.
Premiered on Our Culture Mag.
awards.
- Vimeo Staff Pick
- Featured on Creativepool
- Official selection at Festival Motion Design, Nevers, France.
- Official selection at A/perture Cinema, On and on, St. Winston Salem, NC, USA.
- Official selection at Athens Digital Arts Festival 2019 Extending Realities, Greece.
- Official selection at ANIMA, Córdoba International Animation Festival, Vitória, Brazil
5 seconds looping animation for Greyscale Gorilla 5 seconds projects contest, April 2018. Theme: “Playground“.
After a long winter, the spring is finally here. So, we went to the playground and, well, we weren’t the only ones. A swarm of endless sliding and swinging and screaming kids, all around us!
The only thing we’ve been left to do was to join them. So here we are!
Done in Cinema4d + Arnold with the precious help of alcinoo.
Fully looping!
Music: Gingerlys – Playgrounds live at WFMU (Creative Common 0)
With Google Creative Lab, I had the chance to work on this incredible 360 video for Waymo.
Working with the creative leads, I helped them envision the look of the graphic overlays, translating not just in a simple and effective way how the Waymo technologies work, but also trying to be as much accurate as possible.
I also created the logo animation and a wide range of assets, used for press and internal use.
NSynth Super it’s an open source experimental instrument made by Google Creative Lab which gives musicians the ability to make music using completely new sounds generated by the Magenta’s NSynth algorithm from 4 different source sounds.
Working with the Google Creative Lab team, I’ve been responsible of envisioning and delivering some animations for the website and videos. Trying to be as much as precise as possible, I coded some animations in After Effects starting from the real data coming from the AI algorithm.
Working just with shapes and baking expressions, I managed to export my 30 seconds animation into an SVG format, which file size is as little as 500kb. This it’s then been embedded in the official NSynth Super website.
Personal project, fun with patterns and hidden lost people.