Houdini Lighting TD

Framestore brings together world-class producers, artists, and technologists to craft visually striking work across advertising, episodic, and immersive productions. Our teams blend creative ingenuity with cutting-edge technology to deliver high-end visual effects, immersive storytelling, and premium content for global clients, brands, and broadcasters.

Framestore combines talent and technology to bring life to everything we create. Driven by creativity and inspired by the future, we set out every day to reframe the possible

About the role

The Integrated Advertising division in London work across TV, Commercials, Rides and VR. We are looking for Mid-Senior Houdini Lighters for exciting projects within our team. Lighting Technical Directors are responsible for the final 3D scene assembly, lighting and rendering of elements required to complete visual effects shots.

Responsibilities:

• CG scene assembly including the correct assets from applicable departments

• Lighting shots as briefed by the Visual Effects/CG Supervisor or Sequence Lead

• Working closely with CG Supervisors to determine the best approach to solving CG challenges and developing the final look

• Developing shots in collaboration with the shot Compositor

• Rendering non-lighting passes as required by the shot Compositor

• Creating lighting set ups and/or working with current set ups

• Creating efficient rendering set ups in order to optimise render farm usage

• Scrutinising the colours and directions of all light sources in the real-world scene and replicating them in CG

• Staying on schedule and meeting set deadlines while maintaining the highest levels of quality

• Ongoing communication with Production and leads regarding schedules and deadlines

• Other duties as required including wrangling assets or elements of a shot from another department to ensure shots are completed to schedule

Essential Skills:

• Previous experience with shot look development

• An excellent knowledge of Houdini

• A good understanding of colour-space

• A strong knowledge of lighting techniques

• A basic knowledge of Nuke or similar compositing package, including how to use layers and passes to tweak a shot after it has been rendered

• Good knowledge of other disciplines within VFX including simulation, Modeling and UV mapping, Texturing and Camera Tracking

• Excellent organisation, communication and interpersonal skills

• Creative problem solving and attention to detail

• Able to work well under pressure and meet deadlines while maintaining high quality results

• Able to work successfully as part of a team as well as independently

• Reliable, with good time keeping and the ability to meet deadlines

• Flexible and adaptable with the ability to work within a pre-set workflow or pipeline but also have the creativity and problem solving skills to work around issues

• A thorough knowledge of Maya

• Extensive knowledge of either Renderman, Arnold or similar production renderer

• Basic knowledge of physically plausible shading techniques

• Basic knowledge of Python and/or Mel scripting

• A strong understanding of Linux/Unix based operating systems

Desirable Skills:

• Experience with digital paint software such as Photoshop and/or Mari

• Experience working with effects elements and volume rendering

• Knowledge and experience in other render packages

• Knowledge and experience in Compositing and Nuke

• Experience and knowledge in Modeling and Texturing

Framestore is proud to employ extraordinary talent across all genders, races, nationalities, religions, ages, abilities and sexual preferences. We aim to encourage and support all of our current and future employees to achieve their potential. No job applicant will receive less favourable treatment on any basis when applying for a career with us.