Assistant technical director
As the name of the role says, an Assistant Technical Director assists the Technical Director. The latter writes scripts that generate effects which are going to be used in compositing, defines which software and tools are going to be used and supervises the employers to see if everything is working fine. Also, they help artists to be more focused on creative art work instead of organisational work. The Assistant TD supports the other roles by making sure they have the necessary tools to do their jobs. They may also have to fix minor bug reports in each of the software used. Coding and programming is an essential knowledge, since they’ll have to work on algorithms on a daily basis.
To succeed in this role, it’s important to understand the VFX production pipeline and the needs and limitations of each department. Knowing what software each role works with and what type of code the software has is fundamental. It’s also important to be communicative in order to identify what is the technical issue and come up with ideas to fix it.
A common area they work in the VFX pipeline is rigging, which is based on creating a bone structure used to manipulate a 3D model. They work on how moving the structure will affect the character’s expression, and program a rig to allow animators to animate the asset. Maya and Houdini are good examples of software that contains Skeletal Animation functionality.
Production coordinator
A Production Coordinator manages VFX production of a movie or other project, which involves establishing each team’s budget and deadline, and organizing which assets and artwork will be used in which plate, plus distributing to the departments when needed. They’ll also have to keep track of the current status of shots and have an updated database to keep production and post production teams communicating with each other. Basically their job is to ensure everything in the VFX pipeline is working smoothly.
In this role one will need to communicate well with clients, directors and the entire VFX team. One will report to a production manager and will lead the post production team. To be outgoing is beneficial, but more important is to be organized, since one will be managing projects, working with deadlines and dealing with possible budget mistakes. It’s good to be up to date in new software and what is being done in the industry.
Modelling Artist
Modellers can create an entire unimaginable world using 3D assets. From hard to organic surface, they can model landscapes, characters or any other object using creativity to take a step further in the movie industry. 3D models can be used in animation, live-action movies or games. The job starts with a reference image, which can be a concept art, a realistic object, photographs or sketches. Then a mesh is created originating from basic shapes such as cubes, spheres or cones, and from that they can sculpt and/or extrude the object to form the expected asset. When it’s done, they’ll pass the artwork to a texture artist in order to create shading, and to animators in order to be animated.
A good modeller pays a great deal of attention to the mesh, which has to be formed of quadrilateral polygons, be composed of loops, and have the least amount of faces possible. When dealing with organic surface, meshes can be a lot more dense, and can be hard to be done with polygon modelling, for that reason, they are commonly done by sculpting tools. Organic surface models are usually living things, such as characters, and nature, but it can also involve fabrics like clothes. In contrast, hard surface models are usually still objects, and have harder edges, as the name says. Softwares usually differ when modelling each type of asset, while Maya and 3ds Max are better for hard surface, Zbrush and Mudbox are commonly used for organic surface. A modeller usually specialises in a given area, which can be environment, character, or hard surface.
Kris “Antropus” Costa is a brazilian CG artist who models super-realistic creatures such as this one on the left. Even though he’s known as a modeller, he also does an amazing job in texturing.
On the right, is an example of hard modelling I have found on ArtStation from Albert Valls Punsich.
Texturing Artist
Texturing artists create a look for 3D models, which can be a realistic shading or a more 2D animation look. The job starts by receiving a 3D model and a reference image, which contains the colour palette and real textures they are looking forward to achieving. They need to make sure the UV is working fine, so the texture won’t be applied with distortions. Later, they can either use Photoshop to create texture, or export the object to a texturing software such as Substance Painter and Mari. Finally, they’ll choose a render software, to add lightning and HDRI, and render the scene; Arnold in Maya is a good choice.
Below there’s an example of a texturing workflow in Maya using Arnold.