Senior Render Pipeline Technical Director

Summary

Join Zoic Studios, a Visual Effects company specializing in high-end visual effects, as a Senior Render Technical Director! This role offers the option to work remotely from British Columbia or in our Vancouver studio. You will provide technical support for rendering, debugging issues, optimizing render times, and collaborating with other departments. The ideal candidate possesses expertise in RenderMan, scripting languages (C, C++, Python), and production software (Maya, RenderMan, Nuke, Katana, or Houdini). A strong understanding of VFX concepts, problem-solving skills, and excellent communication are essential. This exciting opportunity involves working on a stop-motion animated feature project.

Requirements

• Specializes in rendering using RenderMan
• Education in computer science, mathematics, engineering, or a related field
• Required skills include scripting / programming in C, C++, Python, or similar languages, as well as familiarity with one or more key production software programs such as Maya, RenderMan, Nuke, Katana, or Houdini
• Heavy familiarity with computer visual effects concepts such as rendering and compositing
• A strong eye coupled with a strong sense of technical cost, guiding sequences towards the right solution for a problem
• A helpful, customer-service attitude coupled with a dedicated sense for debugging complicated pipeline issues
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills are required for communicating with the team, management, and other departments
• Ability to switch contexts under pressure, transitioning amongst solo and collaborative tasks
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team, open to direction and responsive to changing production needs with calm professionalism
• All applicants must be residents of British Columbia, Canada
• Must be legally entitled to work in Canada ie. Citizen, PR, Open Work Permit

Responsibilities

• Provide technical support to all of production in the areas of rendering, disk utilization, and workflow
• Debug memory problems such as Out Of Memory errors and memory leaks caused by heavy geometry, heavy shading networks, large texture files, large effects installs, render instance malfunction, motion blur, dense fog layer passes, and expensive lighting trace paths
• Monitor work proactively to improve sets and assets performance. Manage render time and memory resources. Build test cases to identify the root cause of production scene breakage. Work to reduce noise, eliminates fireflies, improves low quality fog layers. Decode system output logs/stats to diagnose heavy or failed renders
• Work within confined Time/Memory limits, establishing ways to enable delivery of extremely large assets from Effects Department to Lighting Department, without compromising the integrity of the intended packet
• Help optimize renders to ensure fast turnaround and reasonable render times and memory
• Picture debugging, fixing faulty shading introduced by poor micropolygonal dicing. Eliminate unnecessary trace paths to enhance render performance. Identify low sample areas that need improvement while installing appropriate sample fixes
• Collaborate with Effects and Lighting artists to develop solutions to correct visual artifacts; debug efforts in cleanup and fix artifacts in our final images to ensure they meet our high visual standards
• Assist all departments with setting up review renders needed at all phases of production; run sequence reviews, controlling playback, and respond to needs of the room
• Interface with production, systems, and tools to address technical issues in these overlapping areas. Guide problem solving conversations across departments
• Monitor renders on the render farm, disk space organization, and ensure efficient usage of systems resources

Benefits

• 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)
• British Columbia Employees Pay Range: $40 - $65 (The actual base salary offered will depend on a variety of factors, including without limitation, the qualifications of the individual applicant for the position, years of relevant experience, level of education attained, certifications or other professional licenses held, and if applicable, the location of the position)