Senior Houdini Crowd Artist

Summary

Join Zoic Studios, a Visual Effects company specializing in high-end visual effects, as a Senior Houdini Crowd Artist! This role offers the option to work remotely from British Columbia or in our Vancouver studio. You will be responsible for creating crowds of characters and creatures, ensuring they align with the film's visual style and narrative. The position requires 5+ years of high-end production experience and proficiency in Houdini, along with strong communication skills. Zoic Studios values work/life balance and offers a collaborative work environment. This is a fantastic opportunity to contribute to a stop-motion animated feature project.

Requirements

• 5+ years of high-end production experience in television or feature films as a Crowd Artist and/or TD
• Experience in producing crowd simulations
• Proficiency with particle simulations in controlling the motion and look of crowds
• Knowledge of applicable software and platforms; Houdini 18.0 (or higher) experience
• Experience in Houdini Crowd setup and simulation
• Working knowledge of Mantra rendering, Nuke compositing and Maya
• Strong communication skills to perform in a collaborative work environment

Responsibilities

• Create layouts and performances of crowds in scenes and shots on style of the animation performances of the film
• Publish crowds using Houdini to specifications needed by layout for downstream consumption
• Receiver of the crowd launches in sequences, scenes, and shots. Take crowd specific creative input and translate to crowd behavior through performances and overall movement and timing through rules and simulations
• Work with animation to get supporting animation performances that can be used effectively in crowd simulations
• Collaborate with technical directors to develop processes and tools to enhance capabilities, workflows, and throughput
• Perform technical work in support of shot production using various production tools and help troubleshoot and develop creative solutions to complex tasks
• Partner with other disciplines to support each departments’ integration requirements

Preferred Qualifications

• Working knowledge of Renderman and Katana for lighting effects, a plus
• Understanding rigging approaches, a plus

Benefits

• British Columbia Employees Pay Range: $50 - $65 / hour
• At this time, we’re pleased to offer this role as an option to work from home OR work from our Vancouver studio in the beautiful Gastown area, close to the Waterfront Station in Downtown. (Remote is not available outside of BC; there is no hybrid)