July 27, 2011
About Pixar Canada
Pixar Canada is looking for a Rendering Technical Guru for its studio in Vancouver. Pixar Canada is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pixar Animation Studios, the world leader in animated films. The Vancouver studio produces short-form animation focuses on legacy Pixar characters from films such as Toy Story and Cars. This is an opportunity to be part of a world-class organization and to be part of diverse and talented team.
Summary of Job
The Rendering department is responsible for producing final images, understanding the entire geometry, shading, motion and lighting pipeline to analyze and remove visual artifacts and issues, and optimizing the use of rendering resources on the render farm. The Technical Guru for the Rendering Team has two primary responsibilities: rendering shots and solving technical rendering problems as a “go-to” generalist for the department.
In a typical day, the Render Guru will:
• Render, composite and deliver finished images for post-production and image mastering
• Quality check shots, spot artifacts and suggest solutions in collaboration with creative and technical leads.
• Read code and data (shaders, rib, python, etc) to figure out why something isn’t working
• Debug/troubleshoot/optimize production renders
• Help other artists with technical roadblocks and issues
• Monitor rendering trends during the course of production; anticipate issues and suggest solutions. Review Render Farm statistics and graphs to spot bottlenecks and remove them.
• Collaborate with the Render Farm administrator to optimize farm usage
• Write tools to make life better
• Troll through past film data, images, documents, logs for clues to solve technical riddles
• Update production managers on the status and ETA of shots in progress
Required Qualifications
• Must have proven experience and passion for producing world class computer imagery.
• Experience in TV, film, or other graphics production experience.
• A strong drive to debug and solve problems, ability to read and understand code, and a good eye for visual details.
• Excellent Unix/Linux skills, particularly Python and shell scripting.
• An excellent knowledge of rendering
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including artist support and requirements gathering. An unflappable, organized and a clear communicator.
• Must be able to multi-task under pressure, communicating progress and self-managing work.
• Must be able to work alone and collaboratively
• Must be open to direction and able to embrace change.
Any of the following qualifications will be considered an advantage:
• A degree in computer science or extensive programming experience.
• Experience programming a renderer.
• Experience with Render Farm Management systems (distributed computing management).
• Experience with C, C++, Perl, sl.
Submission Process
To apply for this position, please apply to the positing on line at www.pixarcanada.com with a cover letter and resume.
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