Profile Picture

Faiz Ansari

Welcome! From my humble beginnings as the family's tech support, I seem to have become what others refer to as a "Software Engineer" Currently, I'm contributing as a backend engineer to collective action and labor mobilization efforts in the tech space. My experience spans the media & entertainment landscape, particularly, animation, games, and vfx, with some delving into machine learning pipelines Previously, I designed and realized a scalable KVM-based cloud computation and rendering service, driven by vGPU VFIO passthrough, aimed at improving the accesibility of cloud services for artists, scientists, and studios over contemporary solutions like AWS, GCP, or Azure Say hi at connect@faiz.page

Some of my work

Cloud vGPU Rendering Network

A cloud service for low-latency access to remote computational resources à la AWS' EC2; geared towards high-performance graphics rendering. Built upon an investment of GPUs and PowerEdge servers by Filmtools, a core objective of this service was industry-wide strandardization of CGI and VFX production in fulfillment of the foundational principles of MovieLabs' 2030 Vision Initiative.
Node.js
Express.js
PowerShell
libvirt
Active Directory
Auth0
Link to GitHubView Source

Object Mesh Encoder

Preview Tile for the 'Object Mesh Encoder' project
A utility I created to enable proceedural regeneration of the meshes within 3D environments, such as ones built in Unreal Engine, as part of an effort to establish a remote and collaborative compositing pipeline encapsulated in virutal reality. Written in C++ as an extension for Autodesk Maya, it serializes the vertices, UVs, and textures of selected mesh objects in a scene for export.
C++
Maya SDK
Unreal Engine
RealtimeMeshComponent
Link to GitHubView Source

Virtual Post-Production Editorial

Preview Tile for the 'Remote Editorial' project
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, I created this to facilitate post-production editorial adhering to work-from-home quarantining policies; delivered to clients at Moviola Post. Lets you create private rooms to feature a live hi-res stream of the editor's viewport and the webcams of participants. Self-hosted TURN/STUN servers and dynamic bitrate ensure stablbility and live syncing to the editor's output for all viewers.
Vue.js
JavaScript
NDI Tools
VDO Ninja
Link to GitHubView Source

"The Path Ahead"

The Path Ahead is an interactive 3D/VR experience; a dystopic visualization the themes and symbolism of Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, created as an academic collaboratory for USC's Ahmanson Lab. I engineered and designed the player control, physics, proceedurally generated terrain, volumetric particle fog, weather effects, crowd simulation AI, and many other core mechanics.
Unity
C#
ProceeduralToolkit
Agile
Link to GitHubDownload Link to GitHubView Source

Q-Learning Atari Breakout

Preview Tile for the 'Q-Learning Atari Breakout' project
Trained a neural network via the Markov decision process to play OpenAI's Atari Breakout. Value and policy iteration executed in TensorFlow, guided by the paper on the problem by Hvass Labs. Found optimal learning-rate and epsilon-probability parameters that averaged a reward of 145.17, a near-perfect winrate, in under 28 training episodes.
Python
Tensorflow
OpenAI Gym
Jupyter
Source + Training Logs

NavMesh Pathfinding Sandbox

Preview Tile for the 'NavMesh Pathfinding' project
Extended upon Brackey's NavMesh Tutorial to create a series of 3D arenas, both static and dynamic, and an agent that traverses them to reach a point on the map selected by the player, follwing an optimal trajectory defined by the A* pathfinding algorithm. Utilizes Unity's NavMesh components to define traversal maps for the agent.
Unity
C#
NevMeshComponents
Link to GitHubView Source

Me IRL

I enjoy practicing calisthenics, tending to my plants, skateboarding, and most recently, script-writing a satire about the human experience. Oh, and obeying the wills of my rescued cat and rabbit! For most of last year, I volunteered at a communal music-therapy academy. My time there involved mentoring students on the drums and guitar, as well as being a safe source of emotional guidance/support according to the unique needs of each student. Here's me on drums at one of the many spontaneous jams at the school.