Braden Jennings
Pipeline Technical Director at CAUSE AND FX- Claim this Profile
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Topline Score
Bio
Rudy Grossman, MBA
Braden is one of the best pipeline engineers I’ve ever worked with. He hit the ground running from day 1, and quickly became a trusted and incredibly valuable team member. Braden’s professionalism and commitment to quality are outstanding. Braden is a rare gem when considering how vitally important it is for any company to have a reliable well-written infrastructure.
Indira Guerrieri
I worked with Braden for 2+ years at Soul Machines. Our team was tasked with standardizing character look development for digital assets and automating asset and texture workflows. Together we worked on two major overhauls of the artist pipeline at Soul Machines. Looking back at the tools that the artists at Soul Machines had when we started, and how much easier their workflows are today, there just is no doubt in my mind that Braden was a major driver of the innovation. Braden is a Qt magician. He thinks and breathes wonderful interfaces for optimizing artist workflows. He can take ideas for tools and, it seems, almost instantly design and put them in action. He is so responsive to artist needs that it's almost like he's thought of a solution before it's requested. Braden was often in high demand at Soul Machines because he wrote and maintained all sorts of tools for our texture and modelling teams, from Agisoft and texture baking automation on Deadline, to packing and streamlining access to textures used Soul Machines' real-time engine. He also maintained the delivery tool for artists, and redesigned it so it was more performant (with clever caching tricks) and more accessible. I highly recommend Braden and would work with him again in a heartbeat.
Rudy Grossman, MBA
Braden is one of the best pipeline engineers I’ve ever worked with. He hit the ground running from day 1, and quickly became a trusted and incredibly valuable team member. Braden’s professionalism and commitment to quality are outstanding. Braden is a rare gem when considering how vitally important it is for any company to have a reliable well-written infrastructure.
Indira Guerrieri
I worked with Braden for 2+ years at Soul Machines. Our team was tasked with standardizing character look development for digital assets and automating asset and texture workflows. Together we worked on two major overhauls of the artist pipeline at Soul Machines. Looking back at the tools that the artists at Soul Machines had when we started, and how much easier their workflows are today, there just is no doubt in my mind that Braden was a major driver of the innovation. Braden is a Qt magician. He thinks and breathes wonderful interfaces for optimizing artist workflows. He can take ideas for tools and, it seems, almost instantly design and put them in action. He is so responsive to artist needs that it's almost like he's thought of a solution before it's requested. Braden was often in high demand at Soul Machines because he wrote and maintained all sorts of tools for our texture and modelling teams, from Agisoft and texture baking automation on Deadline, to packing and streamlining access to textures used Soul Machines' real-time engine. He also maintained the delivery tool for artists, and redesigned it so it was more performant (with clever caching tricks) and more accessible. I highly recommend Braden and would work with him again in a heartbeat.
Rudy Grossman, MBA
Braden is one of the best pipeline engineers I’ve ever worked with. He hit the ground running from day 1, and quickly became a trusted and incredibly valuable team member. Braden’s professionalism and commitment to quality are outstanding. Braden is a rare gem when considering how vitally important it is for any company to have a reliable well-written infrastructure.
Indira Guerrieri
I worked with Braden for 2+ years at Soul Machines. Our team was tasked with standardizing character look development for digital assets and automating asset and texture workflows. Together we worked on two major overhauls of the artist pipeline at Soul Machines. Looking back at the tools that the artists at Soul Machines had when we started, and how much easier their workflows are today, there just is no doubt in my mind that Braden was a major driver of the innovation. Braden is a Qt magician. He thinks and breathes wonderful interfaces for optimizing artist workflows. He can take ideas for tools and, it seems, almost instantly design and put them in action. He is so responsive to artist needs that it's almost like he's thought of a solution before it's requested. Braden was often in high demand at Soul Machines because he wrote and maintained all sorts of tools for our texture and modelling teams, from Agisoft and texture baking automation on Deadline, to packing and streamlining access to textures used Soul Machines' real-time engine. He also maintained the delivery tool for artists, and redesigned it so it was more performant (with clever caching tricks) and more accessible. I highly recommend Braden and would work with him again in a heartbeat.
Rudy Grossman, MBA
Braden is one of the best pipeline engineers I’ve ever worked with. He hit the ground running from day 1, and quickly became a trusted and incredibly valuable team member. Braden’s professionalism and commitment to quality are outstanding. Braden is a rare gem when considering how vitally important it is for any company to have a reliable well-written infrastructure.
Indira Guerrieri
I worked with Braden for 2+ years at Soul Machines. Our team was tasked with standardizing character look development for digital assets and automating asset and texture workflows. Together we worked on two major overhauls of the artist pipeline at Soul Machines. Looking back at the tools that the artists at Soul Machines had when we started, and how much easier their workflows are today, there just is no doubt in my mind that Braden was a major driver of the innovation. Braden is a Qt magician. He thinks and breathes wonderful interfaces for optimizing artist workflows. He can take ideas for tools and, it seems, almost instantly design and put them in action. He is so responsive to artist needs that it's almost like he's thought of a solution before it's requested. Braden was often in high demand at Soul Machines because he wrote and maintained all sorts of tools for our texture and modelling teams, from Agisoft and texture baking automation on Deadline, to packing and streamlining access to textures used Soul Machines' real-time engine. He also maintained the delivery tool for artists, and redesigned it so it was more performant (with clever caching tricks) and more accessible. I highly recommend Braden and would work with him again in a heartbeat.
Credentials
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Unity Essentials Pathway
UnityJun, 2022- Nov, 2024 -
SQL for Data Science
CourseraNov, 2021- Nov, 2024
Experience
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CAUSE AND FX
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New Zealand
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Movies, Videos, and Sound
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1 - 100 Employee
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Pipeline Technical Director
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Jan 2023 - Present
- Extending and maintaining OpenPype pipeline for the requirements of the studio and projects. - Developing Pyblish / OpenPype collector, validator, extractor, creator, loader, etc plugins for DCC such as Houdini, 3D Equalizer, Nuke and more. Adding new families and representations of types of production data. - Developing Houdini digital asset nodes for publishing to OpenPype. - Developing entirely new OpenPype host for DCC, with all associated integration and create, load, and publish plugins. Adding all required schema files. - Gitea / Git for code management - Gitea for ticket management. - Python, OpenPype, PyQt / PySide, Deadline, ftrack, Gitea, Git and more. - Houdini, 3D Equalizer, Nuke, Maya and more. Show less
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Soul Machines
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United States
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Software Development
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1 - 100 Employee
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Senior CG Pipeline Developer
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Feb 2022 - Dec 2022
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Production Tools Developer
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Nov 2020 - Feb 2022
- Developed pipeline tools for photo capture, photogrammetry, FACS, texture map acquisition, facial system, character runtimes, environment management and asset management.- Developed pipeline to generate Jobs for AWS / Deadline- Developed desktop apps, UI and submission tools and backend for pipeline.- Developed widgets to track Jobs running on Deadline in context of submission apps.- Developed validations and publish for assets.- Worked with AWS, Spot Fleet, Deadline Monitor etc.- Acted as a Wrangler. Kept on eye on jobs and proactively managing resources, and debugging issues- Configured Worker instances and AMIs to ship production code and more.- Troubleshooted users job submissions and other issues.- Used JIRA and worked in sprints. Created and managed tickets. Worked in Agile way.- Came up with concepts , wireframes, and prototypes to quickly iterate on design and communicate with the team. Contributed to design discussions.- Git / Gitlab / GitHub for code management.- Carried out internal release procedures and maintaining software environments.- Part of a group managed following agile principles. Also worked in self directed manner at times.- Python, PyQt / Pyside, Deadline, AWS, Airtable, and internal Librarian and HAL, and more.- Maya, Nuke, VRay, Agisoft Metashape and more. Show less
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Weta Digital
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New Zealand
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Entertainment Providers
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300 - 400 Employee
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Shots R&D Pipeline Technical Director
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Jul 2015 - Oct 2020
- Developed pipeline, tools, plugins and desktop applications for the Shots R&D group, with more of a focus on Matte Painting domain. I also developed for different domains under Shots R&D, such as: lighting, effects and compositing.- Helped artists interact with pipeline data and improve their workflows.- Developed pipeline to submit Jobs to Weta's render wall for the third party software Clarisse, Terragen, VRay, Maya, Katana and more. While also performing various post processes / dependencies, and insuring associated Products are properly formulated for Weta’s pipeline using various internal APIs. - Developed new Products and Resources with plugins and schemas, and associated pipeline.- Developed Atlas / Redbox components and representations, actions and more.- Used JIRA for project management. Creating and managing tickets.- Git / Gitlab for code management.- Documentation with Sphinx and Wiki.- Carry out internal release procedures and maintaining software environments.- Meet directly with artists and proposed concepts and solutions. - I was managed following agile principles at times. I also worked a lot without any supervision in this role. - Python, PyQt / Pyside, unittest, Sphinx, and internal Athena, Atlas, Redbox, Hydra, Kenobi, and more- Clarisse, Maya, Terragen, VRay, Katana, Nuke, Houdini and more. Show less
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Environments Assistant Technical Director and Pipeline Developer
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Dec 2012 - Jul 2015
Developing and designing solutions to challenging production issues by creating various stand alone applications, command line, Maya and Nuke plugins or tools using Python, PyQt / PySide, Maya API / Commands and C++. While working with other Weta Digital specific modules and tools.
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Shots Assistant Technical Director
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Apr 2012 - Dec 2012
Lighting and troubleshooting renders with prMan and other proprietary tools. Compositing debug renders and preparing shots, Programming various tools using Python.
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Read Me Stories
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E-Learning Providers
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3D Generalist
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Nov 2010 - Feb 2012
Primarily rigging and posing many characters, for a digital storybook tablet and phone application. Modelling, texturing, and some concept design of characters and environments was also involved for this position. Primarily rigging and posing many characters, for a digital storybook tablet and phone application. Modelling, texturing, and some concept design of characters and environments was also involved for this position.
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Weta Digital
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New Zealand
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Entertainment Providers
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300 - 400 Employee
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Creature Assistant Technical Director
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Jul 2011 - Sep 2011
Troubleshoot cloth, skin and hair simulation issues. Credits - Tintin (2011) - Creatures ATD Troubleshoot cloth, skin and hair simulation issues. Credits - Tintin (2011) - Creatures ATD
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Ramp Brand Communications Ltd
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New Zealand
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Design Services
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Flash Animator
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Dec 2010 - May 2011
Flash web banners. Flash web banners.
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Momentum Online
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Australia
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Marketing Services
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3D Generalist at Momentum Studios (now known as Momentum Online)
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Jan 2008 - Oct 2010
Full time position as a 3D generalist, primarily creating assets and animations for aeronautical interactive Flash learning tools. A great deal of other assets were created for websites, and motion graphic videos. This role was often highly creative, because I was often involved from the earliest concept stages, through to the final product. Key projects include - Created over 150 interactive learning tools for Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology (NMIT) to demonstrate aeronautical and aircraft concepts. Every one of these 150 learning tools required creating 3D elements, animation, dynamics, rendering using Maya, compositing, and scripting in Flash Actionscript. - Moonjoos interactive website with six environments, and a moon overview globe. This project required skills in many aspects of 3D production, including concept design. The website presented the fictional story you had been abducted and taken to the dark side of the moon. Where an alcohol production facility, among other defensive turrets had been built. The user is forced to navigate the facility playing various games, that reenact the experience of being a slave here. - Helicopter Safety Training video for Abu Dhabi Aviation in United Arab Emirates. I was responsible for all 3D production aspects and compositing. A large amount of props, helicopter exterior and interior models needed to be made and animated. Most of these assets required extensive rigging, because the safety video demonstrated many aspects in a methodical manner. Show less
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Education
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The University of Waikato
Honours, Computer Graphic Design - Focused on 3d production aspects -
The University of Waikato
Bachelor, Computer Graphic Design - Major in time based media (3d) -
Hawera High School
Community
