ToonBox Entertainment - VFX Artist (Toronto)

[Toonbox Careers]

Position: Visual Effects Artist

Reports to: VFX Supervisor and/or CG Supervisor

Position Description:

The VFX Artist is responsible for creating Environmental and Character related special effects that support the visual styles and narratives of one or more stereoscopic films in production. Collaboration with all other crew members is expected during the design and development of creative and technical tools. We want to establish effective production workflows for use by other VFX artists, animators, lighters or compositors. The collective goal is to generate exciting visuals using powerful and efficient tools and techniques. Also, given the skillset, this artist may be required to assist other asset or shot departments such as Modeling, Layout, Character FX, Finaling, and Lighting/Compositing with hands-on shot work.

Principal Duties and Responsibilities:

- In cooperation with the VFX Supervisor and Director, help establish, reinforce and enhance the look of the film by designing, executing and delivering FX elements as well as finished FX shot work throughout production.

- Troubleshoot creative and technical issues.

- Partner with the Modeling, Surfacing, Animation, Character FX and Lighting and Compositing to help support each department’s FX development and integration issues.

- Maintain a high level of quality while working on multiple projects, both visual development and shot production under aggressive deadlines.

- Work closely with other Technical Directors, Production Supervisors, CG/VFX Supervisors, and Production Engineering to maintain and further the evolution of the production pipeline.

- Assist in the training and mentoring of other Entry Level or Assistant Technical Directors.

Requirements:

- 3+ years of high-end production experience in feature films, television or games as an FX artist and/or TD.

- A high level of expertise in production software and a willingness to work with artists in training and troubleshooting production issues that arise.

- Familiarity with production software including Houdini, Maya, Naiad, RealFlow, and 3Delight or Renderman.

- Knowledge of digital compositing techniques in Fusion, Nuke, or Shake.

- Experience with physical simulations of rigid bodies, fluids and particles, as well as procedural modeling and animation techniques to produce effects such as explosions, smoke, fire, clouds, water, deformations and atmospherics.- Exceptional trouble-shooting and problem solving skills are key, as well as a clear understanding of the mathematical and geometric underpinnings of many of the visual effects tasks.

- Clear, direct and thorough communication skills will be required in dealing with both technical and artistic groups.

- Modeling, Texturing and Lighting experience is very valuable, as is experience with advanced lighting techniques such as Global Illumination, HDRI, and subsurface scattering.

- Familiarity with both Windows and Linux animation and rendering production environments.

Education:

- A Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Animation or Art, combined with another technical area of study or interest (such as Physics, Mathematics or Engineering), and/or equivalent job experience.

Other Desired Skills:

- A solid aesthetic sense; a consistent, finely tuned creative eye that can recognize, direct and execute outstanding, coherent, well-integrated visual effects.

- A strong combined technical and creative background with in-depth knowledge of current 2D and 3D computer graphics techniques as they are used in the feature film and media production industries.

- Strong programming skills in Python, Perl, C++, or other language in a professional environment; a history of coding tools and plugins for use with Renderman (3Delight), Maya or Houdini would be a tremendous asset;

- Strong R&D experience in artist tool and pipeline development in production environments.

- A professional history of collaboration on projects with teams of varied sizes and disciplines.

- RI filtering experience with Renderman compliant renderers.

- UI development experience with PyQt or wxPython.

www.toonboxent.com

Send all resumes/applications to:

Attention: ToonBox Careers

ToonBox Entertainment Ltd.

26 Richardson Street Toronto, Ontario

Canada M5A 4J9

OR

Submit by email to:

careers@toonboxent.com

-ToonBox Entertainment.

Edited April 12, 2013 by Toonbox Careers