Overview

Purpose of the job:
The Crowd Department is responsible for the design and setup of crowd agents meeting the specific needs of each show, as well as the integration of these agents into complex crowd systems for downstream departments such as fx and lighting.

The Crowd Pipeline TD is responsible for maintaining, troubleshooting, and improving the crowd pipeline. They design, implement, and manage tools that assist the digital artists with their daily use of both third party and in house software and systems. The role requires strong technical and communication skills, as well as a firm understanding of animation blending, state machines, software design, computer graphics, and production workflow.

Crowd Pipeline TDs work with peers and supervisors to craft novel tools, techniques, and procedures, as directed by the Crowds Supervisor. They also provide show support as needed for artists using the crowd pipeline and toolset.

Essential Functions/Responsibilities:
● Ability to work with artists and other TDs to help design and create tools to be integrated into Digital Domain’s existing pipeline. These tools will be created using a combination of custom and commercial Python and C++ APIs.
● Work with Crowd Leads to augment the team’s workflows and toolsets to achieve specific goals of the project.
● Work directly with artists to troubleshoot and fix problems.
● Craft and update documentation for tools, techniques, and workflows generated.

Education and/or Experience Required:
● 3+ years experience as a Technical Director.
● Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics or a related field and/or a combination of education and experience that would be equivalent to that level of professionalism, problem solving, and analytical skills.
● Experience with crowds (Houdini, Massive, or similar) and understanding of underlying
technology, including finite state machines and event triggers.
● Experience with Houdini desired, including familiarity with Houdini’s Python frameworks (HOM,
etc.) and creation of HDAs.
● Experience with VEX, CHOPs, and procedural creation and management of HDAs a plus.
● Understanding of Houdini agent primitive structure and definition a plus.
● Experience with Nuance, MotionBuilder, or equivalent a plus.
● Experience with motion editing/processing, signal processing, and/or programmatic animation cleanup a plus.
● Knowledge of PySide is a plus.