Company Description

Repeatedly voted one of Montreal’s Top Employers and Employer of the Year for the 2022 Mercuriades Awards, Rodeo FX is a high-end creative company offering services in visual effects, advertising, animation, and experiential.

Nominated for multiple Emmy® Awards for its work on the series Stranger Things season 4, The Witcher season 2, and The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power season 1, the independent, Oscar®-winning company boasts close to 900 artists crafting from studios in Montreal, Québec City, Toronto, Los Angeles and Paris.

Rodeo FX is a creative partner to the world’s best storytellers including Netflix, HBO, Disney, Marvel, Amazon Studios, Warner Bros., and Sony, and has collaborated on ads for YouTube, NBC, and Apple. Current projects include Blue Beetle, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and Zack Snyder's Rebel Moon. Recently released projects include John Wick: Chapter 4, Black Adam, Disney's The Little Mermaid, and Love, Death and Robots Volume 3, for which the company won a 2023 VES award.

Job Description

The crowd simulation artist designs and executes dynamic simulation systems to generate believable, varied crowds that are consistent with the project's visual requirements. They are involved at various stages of production, from asset creation to their integration into shots, in close collaboration with the supervision, layout, animation, lighting, and compositing teams. Their rigorous and inventive work directly contributes to the scale and realism of the scenes, while respecting technical constraints and delivery deadlines.

Main responsibilities:

Mastery of his craft

• Convert assets to crowd agents with all the constraints inherent to the pipeline, project and software.
• Create and configure simulation systems to generate credible, diverse and dynamic crowds.
• Run simulations in shots according to briefs received, adjusting parameters according to the context of the scene.
• Adapt your working methods to the complexity of the plan, the style of the project and the technical constraints.
• Maintain complete autonomy in the organization and execution of assigned tasks.

Creative quality

• Propose inventive approaches to enrich crowd behaviors, cycles and diversity.
• Collaborate with animation, layout and lighting artists to ensure the artistic consistency of the scene.
• Integrate supervisory feedback with openness and precision.
• Maintain a constant attention to detail, realism and visual rhythm.

Technical quality

• Optimize rigs, agents, simulation systems and caches to ensure performance and stability.
• Quickly detect errors in behavior, collisions or inconsistent interactions.
• Collaborate with other departments to help resolve issues around crowd cache entrances and exits.
• Carry out rigorous quality checks before delivery of plans.
• Contribute to the improvement of the department's internal tools and workflows.

Communication

• Provide realistic estimates, communicate quickly if there are difficulties or risks of delay, and collaborate with production to adjust priorities if necessary.
• Ensure smooth communication with supervision, production and other departments.
• Share critical information on progress, technical issues or anticipated deadlines.
• Participate in turnovers, briefings and reviews with clarity and a spirit of collaboration.

Learn, transmit and evolve

• Update your knowledge of crowd simulation tools and new procedural approaches.

• Share your learnings, scripts or useful techniques with your colleagues.

• Contribute to the documentation of methods or the development of internal tools if required.

• Participate in the continuous improvement of the department by remaining curious, rigorous and committed.

Qualifications

• Experience in crowd simulation in a VFX environment (5 years minimum recommended).

• Proficiency in crowd simulation software (Houdini Crowd, Golaem).

• Excellent knowledge of Maya, basic rigging and cycle animation.

• Good understanding of CG pipelines and inter-departmental issues.

• Rigor, autonomy, attention to detail, team spirit.

• Strengths: knowledge of Flow Production Tracking, Python scripting, MEL, VEX, development of personalized behaviors.

Additional Information

• Previous Golaem experience is required to be considered for the role.
• Previous Houdini crowd experience is required to be considered for the role.
• Candidates must be based in the province of Quebec or willing to relocate.

Diversity : At Rodeo FX, diversity is a core value. We’re committed to creating an inclusive, equitable workplace where different perspectives are embraced. Every team member brings unique insight that strengthens our creativity, challenges our thinking, and helps us deliver better work.

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