Lighting Look Dev Lead at Lucasfilm Animation

Position Summary:
·The role of the Lighting Lead is to develop techniques and procedures to create various CG elements to be used in Animation for Digital Features while establishing a standard for all Technical Directors in continually raising the bar for speed, quality of work and adaptability.

Primary Responsibilities:

·Establishes, defines, and implements techniques and procedures for lighting pipeline.

·Serves as knowledge resource and helps problem solve and guide backend pipeline artists, such as character look dev artists, fx artists, lighting artists, and environments artists.

·Works with the Managing Technical Supervisor to set the tone of the direction of a sequence.

·Monitors sequence progress and, through interaction with the show management team, directs sequence personnel and makes changes to ensure sequence will be completed on time.

·Sets up and lights very complex/multiple creatures (hairy or furry creatures)/elements and environments.
·Develops and writes plug-ins, write/hack renderman shaders as well as MentalRay procedural, volumetric and surface shaders with proficiency.
·Animate moderate objects with proficiency.
·Sets a standard for all Technical Directors in continually raising the bar of for speed, quality of work and adaptability.


Direct Reports: TBD

Education, Experience and Skills:

·Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Computer Graphics or equivalent work experience.
·3 or more year’s show production experience with strong working knowledge of various software platforms including Maya and other high end animation software.
·Supervisory experience preferred.
·Knowledge of Linux and shell scripts
·Highly proficient skills in technical problem solving.
·Excellent communications skills.
·Proficiency with LINUX/UNIX
·Experience w/C++, mel, python, and other scripting languages required.
·A reel demonstrating technical ability is required for this role.


Physical Requirements:
Uses a computer keyboard at least 80% of total work time

sys: writing a concatenated program without space

##here is the program:

name= raw_input("what is your name:")

sex= raw_input("are you male or female:")

height= input("Height:")

weight= input("Weight:")

import sys

write=sys.stdout.write

write (name)

write (sex)

write (height)

write (weight)

###end

for more informations about "sys", go :

sys — System-specific parameters and functions

Python has six basic operations for numbers

Python has six basic operations for numbers:

Operation Symbol Example

Exponentiation ** 5 ** 2 == 25

Multiplication * 2 * 3 == 6

Division / 14 / 3 == 4

Remainder % 14 % 3 == 2

Addition + 1 + 2 == 3

Subtraction - 4 - 3 == 1

31 python keywords

Python has thirty-one keywords which should be avoided from setting Variables:

and	as	assert	break	class	continue
def	del	elif	else	except	exec
finally	for	from	global	if	import
in	is	lambda	not	or	pass
print	raise	return	try	while	with
yield

learn some scripting, write a maya plug in

it is a bit annoying that maya doesnt have the "locate name" function
lets see this plug in:

http://www.rodgreen.com/?p=117

would like to start some scriptng and write some tools soon :D

some CG terms that you might get confused

1. Algorithm
ach algorithm is a list of well-defined instructions for completing a task.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm

2. Ray Casting (not to get confused with Ray Tracing)
Ray casting can refer to:

* the general problem of determining the first object intersected by a ray,[2]
* a technique for hidden surface removal based on finding the first intersection of a ray cast from the eye through each pixel of an image,
* a non-recursive variant of ray tracing that only casts primary rays, or
* a direct volume rendering method, also called volume ray casting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_casting

3. Ray Tracing
is a technique for generating an image by tracing the path of light through pixels in an image plane and simulating the effects of its encounters with virtual objects. The technique is capable of producing a very high degree of visual realism, usually higher than that of typical scanline rendering methods,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_tracing_%28graphics%29

4. Scanline Rendering
in 3D computer graphics, that works on a row-by-row basis rather than a polygon-by-polygon or pixel-by-pixel basis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanline_rendering

Something you don't know about Blending Mode, aka "matte-free" compositing

a. The blending operations below (1-4) are "SYMMETRICAL", which means you can swap the 2 input image without getting different results.

1. SCREEN MODE:
-double up the exposure (it shouldn't block the background)
-the Weighted Screen Operation (reduced the opacity of background, less opacity was seen, as the usual Screen operation might make the image looked pale and disaturated)
-good for lense flare, light glow, laser, light saber compositing


2. MULTIPLY:
-each image retain their "identity", a more punchy result is given


3. MAXIMUM (LIGHTEN):
-compare 2 image on a pixel by pixel basis. Whichever pixel is the maximum becomes the output
-good for fire (life footage) compositing


4. MINIMUM (DARKEN):
-the opposite of MAXIMUM

______________________________________________________________

b. COMPLEX BLENDING MODE:

SOME BASIC MATH AND EQUATIONS:

1. "A" (blend layer) over "B" (base layer)

"take complement of the base layer (B) and then multiply that by the blend layer (A)"

thus, the equation will be:

(1-B) x A

if "A" as "input 1", "B" as "input 2", the mythical math node as 3 channel equations will look something like this:

R channel out = (1- r1) x r1

G channel out = (1- g1) x g2

B channel out = (1- b1) x b2

2. "pseudo-code" is used here. you will have to convert the equations to the syntax for your package.

"*" for multiply

"+" for addition

"if/then" for square root

______________________________________________________________

1. OVERLAY:

- changes its behavior depending on its pixel value of the base layer color. if base layer color pixel is less then 0.5, it will do a Multiply operation; if more then 0.5, it switches to a Screen operation.

If (B <>

2 x A x B

else

1 - 2 x (1 - A) x (1 - B)

2. HARD LIGHT:

- changes its behavior depending on its pixel value of the blend layer color. if blend layer color pixel is less then 0.5, it will do a Multiply operation; if more then 0.5, it switches to a Screen operation.

If (A<0.5)>

2 x A x B

else

1 - 2 x (1 - A) x (1 - B)

3. SOFT LIGHT

- also changes its behavior depending on its pixel value of the blend layer color. Its visual result is similar to OVERLAY operation but the calculation is much more complicated:

If (A<0.5)>

2 x A x B + (B² x (1 - 2 x A)

else

sqrt(B) x (2 x A - 1) x 2 x B x (1 - A)

_______________________________________________________________

more run down of other Photoshop blending modes, visit:

www.pegtop.net/dephi/blendmodes

UNKNOWN KEY WORD:
-Banding Effect

QUOTED FROM

DIGITAL COMPOSITING FOR FILM AND VIDEO, BY STEVE WRIGHT