Rafe Sacks

Work History

• 

  Pipeline Supervisor

  Digital Domain

  July 2014 - Present

  [TBA]

  

  
• 

  Lead Character FX

  Digital Domain

  January 2013 - Present

  "Maleficent" (2014) - Leading a cross-site Character FX Cloth and Hair team + Pipeline workflow and API design and implementation.
  
  "Rise of the Tomb Raider" (2014) E3 Trailer - Cloth, hair and bear skin simulation, shot clean-up and production support. Interdepartmental pipeline design, problem-solving and implementation coordination (scripts, communication, support, etc).
  
  Various projects.

  

• Co-Founder

  Path-o-logical Games

  February 2011 - Present

  Game and middleware development using the Unity3D game engine
• 

  Pipeline TD / Character FX TD

  Digital Domain

  November 2011 - December 2012

  - "Jack the Giant Killer" (2013) - In charge of pipeline integration and workflow tools for Character FX; Cloth simulation and clean-up.
  - Planning and development of new global Character FX pipeline
• 

  Technical Animator

  Rhythm & Hues Studios

  May 2011 - October 2011

  "Alvin & the Chipmunks 3: Chip-Wrecked" (2012) - Hair, fur and cloth simulation. Deformation fixes.

  
• 

  Lecturer, Digital Entertainment Technology, SIDM

  Nanyang Polytechnic

  March 2009 - April 2011

  Taking the opportunity to learn from students. Creating and teaching courses in production management, Python, Rigging in Maya, Nuke. Supervising Final Year Projects where students are put in to a 3 month mock-professional full-time production. Whatever time is left over I spend doing industry research in project management and communication technologies and in Houdini.
• 

  CG Supervisor

  Infinite Frameworks Studios

  November 2007 - December 2008

  CG, pipeline & project supervision on an international co-production with a Canadian partner for the animated TV series "Rollbots" . Responsible for cross-continent communication and collaboration with client/partner. Trained Layout, Animation and Production teams. Defined dailies, managment workflow and tracking processes. Directed some Layout and Animation. Developed tools in MEL and Python to increase efficiency for scene setup, asset management and facial animation.
• 

  Creature TD

  Industrial Light & Magic

  January 2007 - August 2007

  Cloth & Rigidbody simulation and clean-up
  "Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End" (2007)
  "Rush Hour 3" (2007)
  "The Spiderwick Chronicles" (2008)

  

  
• 

  Animation Technology Lead

  Animal Logic

  April 2006 - September 2006

  Supervised the development and application of technical solutions for the Animation department toward the end of "Happy Feet". Areas included work-flow and pipeline tools, rigging needs, problem solving for scenes and shots requiring custom solutions, assisting the Directors and supervisors in communicating issues and solutions inside and outside of dailies, and working with the neighboring departments in the pipeline to increase efficiency and communications.
• 

  Lead Character TD (Technical)

  Animal Logic

  February 2003 - April 2006

  Lead TD for technical needs including rigging, and automation/pipeline systems used for generating rigs for "Happy Feet" with an emphasis on work-flow/efficiency tools for Character TDs and Animators.

  
• 

  Previs Artist

  Pixel Liberation Front

  2001 - 2003

  Various projects including previs on "Minority Report" (2002) and finished work on a game cinematic and commercials. Set layout / camera planning, editing, generalist 3D.

  
• 

  Compositor

  Amalgamated Pixels

  2001 - 2001

  "Swordfish" (2001) - Liveaction and 3D compositing.

  

• Character TD

  Mooncrescent Animation

  1999 - 2001

  3D feature character rigging, pipeline, scripting and mocap integration in Softimage3D and then Softimage|XSI. Worked with Softimage Special Projects to beta test XSI.