CLAY HUNTER WELCH

Moraga, CA ad3jak@r.postjobfree.com clay-hunter-welch.com LinkedIn

TECHNICAL 3D GENERALIST

Experienced leader in CG project execution, expert in guiding entire creation pipelines, ensuring artistic integrity and authentic storytelling. Diverse background, encompassing the management of intricate visual 3D projects in feature films and specialized digital realms. Excels in detail-oriented, adaptable problem- solving, underpinned by a thorough understanding of CG technologies, positioned well for pioneering solutions in sophisticated tech and creative environments. Proficient in coordinating with multidisciplinary teams and able to maintain strong team dynamics in demanding settings.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS LEAD TECHNICAL DIRECTOR, CREATIVE SERVICES

Emeryville, CA 5/1998 – 5/2023

• Became expert in proprietary and commercial DCC applications for feature animated film production; commercial applications included Maya, Katana, Houdini, Nuke, Photoshop, and Perforce. Proprietary applications included Pixar’s multifunction character rigging, animation and cinematography tool Presto.

• Coordinated and collaborated with multidisciplinary groups in and out of Pixar to deliver high-resolution, high quality images. Balanced between honoring the look of a given film, the requirements of the intended use, and the particular limitations of print, web, digital video or any number of other intended uses.

• Responding to Disney requests, developed a tool which leveraged object ID information embedded in exr files to harvest geometry mattes and produce a layered PSD file, used by external photo finishers to complete images.

• Responding to vendor requests, developed a pipeline to convert Pixar internal 3D assets to formats usable outside the fence, and later helped guide the creation of a more advanced GUI version by liasing with Pixar Tools.

• Formulated pipeline for AR asset delivery in response to Pixar Interactive request. Task was to output models in a form the studio was not tooled to support. This involved processing geometry while maintaining UV information and marrying that with albedo and specular passes in Maya, outputting to .fbx format.

• Authored GUI image processing tool which allowed managers to handle a multi-stage technical image harvesting process. This tool allowed for the delivery of ~1,500 film images per show, with limited technical artist involvement.

• Helped guide transformation of Creative Services technical team to respected, high-performance assemblage of skilled, dedicated professionals.

SKILLS AND TOOLS

CG Pipeline 3D High-Resolution CG

Lighting, Rendering, Compositing &

Retouch Coding Technical Problem

Solving Systems Efficiency & Function

Evaluation Marketing Brand Focus CG

Feature Film

Python/C++/C#/et al Blender/Maya

Unity Unreal Engine 5 Blueprints Nuke

Photoshop Katana OpenCV

Computer Vision Deep Learning/

PyTorch SQL Perforce GCC/AWS Cloud

Computing

EDUCATION

Texas A&M University; College Station,

TX

M.S., Visualization Sciences,

Incomplete

Department of Visualization within

College of Architecture, focused on

technologies to produce CG visual arts

and entertainment

B.A., English

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

• Blender hard surface modeling and

procedural modeling and custom

material creation.

• Unity and C# game creation, employing

custom-created assets created in

Blender

• Unreal Engine 5 training, Blueprints-

focused development ongoing

• Machine Learning and Neural Network

Training via PyTorch

• Computer Vision utilizing OpenCV and

Mediapipe

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