Maxim Gehricke

is-he-dead-yet.comIs He Dead Yet – we want to know

16 Jan

5 years of work, for 3min of film... My shortfilm "SEN" is now available to watch on www.senshortfilm.com #AnimatedShortFilm #IndieAnimation #AnimationArt #DigitalArt #3DAnimation #CharacterDesign #AnimationCommunity #ShortFilms #FilmFestival #IndieFilm #CGI #AnimationStudio #filmsky

Fuck Microsoft

A lot of websites are in need of an update, but there's none that I'm more eagerly awaiting an update for than is-he-dead-yet.com

A scrapped feature of my animated short was melting snowflakes on the robot. I had done some RnD in 2021, but ended up scrapping it since it meant additional complexity across all shots blowing up the scope.

I was curious to see what it could have looked like, so I whipped up a quick test in Houdini Solaris. I only spent about a day on this, so please don't scrutinize it too much! You can watch my film "SEN" here: senshortfilm.com

On my animated short SEN, the robot character was a mostly hierarchy- and constraint-based rig setup in Maya. The geometry was referenced in and sorted into groups.

I made two variations of that geo, one high-res with final shaders and one low-res with preview textures. Since they shared identical naming, they could be easily exchanged to switch the rig between animating and rendering.

📽️ A short breakdown of how I animated one of the shots on my shortfilm "SEN" #animation #3danimation #Digital3DArt #indieanimation

17 Sept

🎥🎬 A still from my animated shortfilm SEN senshortfilm.com

9 Sept

Quick breakdown of all the various layers that went into the composit for shot 5 of my animated short SEN. senshortfilm.com

2 Sept

The drycleaning came back all wrinkly. I went to confront them, but they said it wasn't their fold.

18 Aug

Everything starts with a rough concept. Here some of the first images I created for my shortfilm "SEN" 🎥🎬 senshortfilm.com #indiefilm #shortfilm #animator #concept #moodboard #sci_fi #fantasyart #animatedshort

11 Aug

This little robot is the protagonist of my now released shortfilm "SEN"! Follow his adventure on senshortfilm.com

6 Aug

One of my go-to lighting techniques to add shape and scale landscapes: cloud shadows! This was especially necessary on shot #5 of my short film SEN. I only had snow to work with, which naturally tends to become a flat, blown-out field of white. More info on SEN can be found here: senshortfilm.com

Meet Rusty! He's old, decayed and muddy. But behind the rust, there's some wisdom. Will you listen to him? Go watch SEN on senshortfilm.com

16 July

Breakdown of how I faked light interaction of the portal activation FX with the Environment inside of Nuke. I used a simple lighting pass with a point light illuminating parts of the Environment, no textures no shaders. I multiplied it with the rendered env and with a blurred version of the FX.

senshortfilm.comSEN - 3D animated shortSEN is a 3d animated short film project by Maxim Gehricke.

14 July

📽️ SEN was made entirely solo — modeling, animation, lighting, rendering, compositing... No studio, no budget. Just time. Have a watch at senshortfilm.com #indieanimation #Digital3DArt

chromewebstore.google.comClear Glass - Chrome Web StoreRemoves obstructive review-gate overlays on supported job-review sites for logged-in users

14 July

Glassdoor has gotten so cluttered with sign-in restrictions and locked content that it's barely usable anymore. Luckily I've found this cool plugin, which removes all of that garbage: chromewebstore.google.com/detail/clear... Works on all chromium based browsers, I'm using it on Brave.

addons.mozilla.orgUnblur Glassdoor Reviews – Get this Extension for 🦊 Firefox (en-US)Download Unblur Glassdoor Reviews for Firefox. Unblurs the reviews page on Glassdoor

14 July

I believe this one does something similar for Firefox, but I haven't tested it: addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo...

7 July

Whoever came up with these horrible date selection menus? Why is this even a thing? It takes longer to scroll through than just typing the goddamn date!

me: *burps* Google Meet: "Did you say something? Your microphone is turned off."

2 July

Another still from my animated shortfilm SEN senshortfilm.com

30 June

Is it acceptable to add a meme to my CV under "Software Skills" ?

The first concept vs the final model of my shortfilms robot character. senshortfilm.com

A quick breakdown of the mud FX on my animated short SEN. You can see the two layers it's composed of. senshortfilm.com

senshortfilm.comSEN - 3D animated shortSEN is a 3d animated short film project by Maxim Gehricke.

The ground is a vellum grains simulation that mostly just reacts to the robot collider.

senshortfilm.comSEN - 3D animated shortSEN is a 3d animated short film project by Maxim Gehricke.

The mud sticking to his body is a vellum grains setup that is activated based on velocity thresholds (red) and in portions with manual activation via keyframes (blue). This layer is a lot more art-directable.

23 June

The portal in SEN distorts the background. I used a custom STMap that I rendered out from Houdini driving an iDistort in Nuke. Here a little breakdown: senshortfilm.com

18 June

I love the fact that Adobe is the only large company in the content creation tech sector that has a dedicated r/FuckAdobe subreddit.

16 June

In a couple of the shots in my animated short SEN the camera gets pretty close to the ground in the crater. The original crater asset doesn't fully hold up at this distance, which is why I created some separate "mudclump" assets to scatter on a per-shot basis.

fmx.deFMXMaxim Gehricke on his experiences solo-creating his 3d animated short film.

16 June

Above video is an excerpt from the presentation I recorded for the FMX Stuttgart: fmx.de/en/program/p...

14 June

I don't get people who scroll tiktok ON SPEAKER on public transport. Something must have gone wrong in raising you if you think subjecting people to noise for your entertainment is acceptable.

11 June

🎥🎬 A still from my animated shortfilm SEN senshortfilm.com

9 June

🎥🎬 A still from my animated shortfilm SEN senshortfilm.com

4 June

🎥🎬 A still from my animated shortfilm SEN senshortfilm.com

@thewritertype.bsky.social

2 June

🎥🎬 A still from my animated shortfilm SEN senshortfilm.com

Maxim Gehricke reposted

Paul Bassett Davies

29 May

Sorry to hear about Jeff Bezos's rocket exploding prematurely. A good technique to prevent that from happening is to try thinking about something you find totally unarousing or even repulsive, like giving workers a living wage or paying a fair share of taxes.

@animationworld.bsky.social

29 May

Maxim Gehricke reposted

Animation World Network

28 May

#NetflixAnimation Production Workers Ratify First Union Contract with #TheAnimationGuild: feature production workers at the studio approved the #IATSE Local 839 agreement with almost 89% in favor of ratification. https://bit.ly/4dRmA8S #TAG839 #Animation #AnimationWorld

28 May

In 2025 I got to work on the FX of ᴡʜᴇᴇʟ ᴏꜰ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ꜱᴇᴀꜱᴏɴ ɪɪɪ Apart from adding channeling magic across many shots, I also built the balefire beam FX. Here's a reel from my website:

26 May

Made an Animation & VFX starter pack. Let me know if you want to be added :) #animation #vfx #visualeffects go.bsky.app/GZwmLhM

📽️ A short breakdown of how I animated one of the shots on my shortfilm "SEN" #animation #3danimation #Digital3DArt #indieanimation

c.orgAssine o Abaixo-assinadoGoogle: Don't take away the freedom to install APKs on Android!

15 May

Android’s freedom is at risk. Google plans to block APK installations from unverified sources in Android 16 (2026). This affects anyone who relies on apps outside the Play Store. Here's a petition that for sure will be read by the lovely Suits at Google /s >>> c.org/7MTy8M844R