Crowd Td

**ABOUT IMAGE ENGINE**

Based in Vancouver BC, Image Engine is a world-class visual effects studio led by a team of creative and passionate individuals who are committed to furthering the art of visual storytelling. We offer a full range of visual effects services from concept designs and pre-visualization to computer-generated animation, compositing, and explosive volumetric digital effects.

Involved from the very first stages of production, our exceptionally talented crew works closely with clients to push artistic and technical boundaries. R&D is central to our philosophy of driving creativity through innovation, with a focus on continually evolving our robust production pipelines and pioneering in the area of proprietary software development.

Well-known for our groundbreaking alien animations in Neill Blomkamp’s critically-acclaimed film District 9, we have gone on to produce more award-winning work in The Mandalorian, Game Of Thrones, Lost in Space, Jurassic World, Elysium, and most recently, we received an Emmy Award for our VFX work in The Book of Boba Fett.

Our recent productions include The Mandalorian: Season 3, The Three-Body Problem, Willow, The School for Good and Evil, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Moon Knight, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, Snowpiercer, Hawkeye, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Mulan, and much more.

**POSITION PURPOSE**

The MID Crowd TD is responsible for the creation and support of high quality crowd performances for film and high-end television.

When not assigned to a particular show, they will actively improve crowd related workflows or support any other department at the periphery. They will maintain a positive attitude during busy periods and deliveries maintaining motivation levels.

**DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES**
- Creating small and large scale crowds for feature film / animation utilizing a variety of commercial and proprietary tools, utilizing a variety of techniques (crowd simulation, crowd layout, particle instancing etc..), using SideFX Houdini / Maya Atoms Crowd. Experience using any other commercial or proprietary crowd solution is also beneficial
- Taking ownership of the complete crowd lifecycle (from layout/previz to rendering/comp) including integration into specific department workflows (FX, CFX etc...).
- Assist artists with any technical assistance they may require including, but not limited to, troubleshooting and debugging any day-to-day production shot issues that may arise around crowd work.
- Collaborating with the Dev and Workflow supervision for the purpose of the continued integration of crowds into the production pipeline.
- Proactively prototyping and testing shot pipelines and demonstrating crowd FX to build confidence with creative leadership.
- Work with Lead to set up crowd effects using the most appropriate techniques as per show requirements, running key shots and fulfilling shot direction. Qc-ing the technical and creative quality of incoming and outgoing assets.
- Working with all required parties to solve any technical and creative crowd related challenges to their best ability.

**EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE**
- 2+ years’ of experience developing crowd setups in VFX feature films, highend-tv or animation.
- A degree or equivalent in Computer Graphics, Computer Science or other related course.

**SKILLS AND ABILITIES**

**Technical skills**
- Excellent working knowledge of Houdini.
- Working knowledge of Maya is a big plus.
- Experience using Atoms Crowd is a big plus.
- Experience in scripting with Python, Vex is a plus.
- Strong understanding of crowd workflows.
- Ability to animate character/non-character assets is a plus.

**Core skills**
- Ability to troubleshoot and deal with competing priorities and projects.
- Excellent problem solver who can focus on details while maintaining a view of the whole picture.
- Ability to teach new techniques and promote new approaches to push performance to the next level.
- Excellent time management and communication skills.