Bernard Lebel

Work History

• 

  Senior Software Engineer, Pipeline

  DigitalFish

  December 2024 - Present

  San Francisco, California, United States · Remote
• 

  Department Technical Director

  DreamWorks Animation

  August 2014 - Present

  [iGO] Joined the iGO project, a collection of technology initiatives.
• 

  Technical Director

  DreamWorks Animation

  May 2008 - Present

  As a Technical Director, I have spent 5 years with the Layout department, about a year as a generalist, and another years as a full time developer. I have done a lot of artists support, and a ton of development. I worked on user facing tools as well as lower level stuff: frameworks, APIs, pipeline integration, etc.
  
  Primarily I have been a python developer. I used MEL and c++. I have also been using a bunch of technologies, APIs and SDKs: PyQt, REST, Maya SDK, SQL, Vertica, Accurev, Git, Docker, Linux.
  
  See my Projects for details on the things I've been
• 

  Pipeline Technical Director

  host vfx

  November 2023 - November 2024

  Los Angeles County, California, United States · Re

  Allowed a large team of artists to focus on their animation and lighting tasks by removing most of the burden of wrangling renders, so that they could deliver a challenging volume of shots within a very tight deadline.
  
  I developed a rendering pipeline with USD and is integrated with Maya, Blender, and Nuke, that builds rendering scenes and submits them with a very simple interface. That system was very robust and very little time was spent on debugging render issues. This is in addition to the creation of new tools as well as improving existing ones to further increase the efficiency of the pipeline.
  
  Film: undisclosed upcoming feature film by Paramount.
• 

  Lead Technical Director

  DreamWorks Animation

  January 2022 - November 2023

  Glendale, California, United States · Hybrid

  Jan 2023 - present: Collaborating with the Pipeline team to achieve the adoption of python 3 across the studio. Working with the developers as well as show Technical Directors to elaborate the adoption strategy.
  
  Jan 2022 - Dec 2022: Delivered a cloud-based platform so that third party vendors could utilize DreamWorks' experimental pipeline (dubbed "PipeX"). The platform included tight security layers, advancements in the DevOps processes, as well as Docker and service-based software management. My role consisted of bringing all the pieces together to enable the artist experience by working with the multiple technology teams, providing them requirements and constant feedback, as well as support the vendor artists throughout.
• 

  Initiative Lead

  DreamWorks Animation

  September 2015 - December 2021

  Glendale, CA · On-site

  Delivered high performance toolset to the modeling artists as part of the studio's exploration of a cloud-based, micro-service architecture pipeline (called "Pipeline X", or simply "PipeX"). Worked with artists and stakeholders, as well as service and UX teams to achieve an experience that met expectations, and some cases, surpassed them. The modeling integration was considered one of the most successful of PipeX, and was a decisive factor in the studio's recent decision to pursue the development of service-based global libraries.
• 

  Global Technical Director

  DreamWorks Animation

  December 2013 - August 2014

  Project lead for Production Metrics (under the umbrella of Production Technology), a new system to enable TDs and other studio technology groups to store and retrieve data points in a uniform and simple way.
  Includes:
  - Python API deveopment,
  - Worked closely with the R&D JoSE team for the database backend architecture,
  - Wrote metrics collector prototypes.
• 

  Department Technical Director

  DreamWorks Animation

  June 2013 - December 2013

  [Home] As a follow up to the work done on the Tiber project, rejoined the Production crew to do the adoption of Tiber by the Final Layout department.
  Includes:
  - Python framework to translate Tiber data into Pipeline data,
  - Work with R&D-Front End on on-going issues,
  - Artist support
• 

  Global Technical Director

  DreamWorks Animation

  August 2012 - February 2013

  Working with the R&D-Front End team to the development of the next generation in-house toolset to do anim prep, called Tiber.
  Includes:
  - Python API development,
  - Data model design,
  - UI design
  
  Technologies: python, rest, SQL, Tableau
• 

  Layout Technical Director

  DreamWorks Animation

  January 2011 - August 2012

  [Rise of the Guardians] Emphasis on development for the Layout department.
  - Project leader for the "location" system (hierarchies of environment assets):
  -- worked with the artists, the Pipeline team and other technical resources to define the requirements and the implementation of locations,
  -- developed framework for locations,
  -- created/improved related user tools to support locations,
  -- developed general purpose hierarchy api to support locations and reconcile more easily the Maya asset model with the proprietary pipeline asset model,
  -- d

  
• 

  Department Technical Director

  DreamWorks Animation

  June 2010 - December 2010

  [Night of the Living Carrots] 9 minutes extra for the Monster vs Pumpkins halloween special DVD, featuring the characters of Monsters vs Aliens. Art, Story, Modeling, surfacing and layout were done in Glendale, while everything else was done in at the DreamWorks Dedicated Unit (aka "The DDU") in Bengalore, India.
  
  - Primarily working with the Layout department, with emphasis on development.
  - The studio used the show as a test bed for Shotgun (the production tracking system), so I developed a framework to integrate Shotgun in the studio pipeline through
• 

  Department Technical Director

  DreamWorks Animation

  December 2009 - June 2010

  [Madly Madagascar] 21 minutes TV special for Valentine's Day featuring the Madagascar characters. Art, Story, Modeling, surfacing and layout were done in Glendale, while everything else was done in at the DreamWorks Dedicated Unit (aka "The DDU") in Bengalore, India.
  
  - Primarily working with the Layout department, with emphasis on technical support.
  - Supported the Production crew with in their dealings with the India side of the project.
  
  Technologies: Python, Maya, Mel, linux, proprietary
• 

  Department Technical Director

  DreamWorks Animation

  June 2009 - December 2009

  [Scared Shrekless] 21 minutes TV special for Halloween featuring the Shrek characters. Art, Story, Modeling, surfacing and layout were done in Glendale, while everything else was done in at the DreamWorks Dedicated Unit (aka "The DDU") in Bengalore, India.
  
  - Primarily working with the Layout department, with emphasis on technical support.
  - Supported the Production crew with in their dealings with the India side of the project.
  
  Technologies: Python, Maya, Mel, linux, proprietary
• 

  Layout Technical Director

  DreamWorks Animation

  May 2008 - May 2009

  [How To Train Your Dragon] Developed the studio Maya set dressing tool, the Maya toolshelf management system. It was the first show with the current generation asset model, so lots of support and tools to help the artists with it.
  
  Technologies: Python, Maya, Mel, linux, proprietary
• 

  Pipeline Engineer

  Mokko Studio

  April 2008 - April 2008

  Create pipeline for animators and lighters to do their shots. the show is called Podcats, produced by French company Okidoki. (project moved from HypgnosisFX to Mokko)

• Pipeline Engineer

  HypgnosisFX

  January 2008 - April 2008

  Create pipeline for animators and lighters to do their shots. the show is called Podcats, produced by French company Okidoki.

• Generalist Technical Director, Pipeline Engineer

  Big Bang Digital Studios

  June 2005 - December 2007

  Create custom tools for artists, for XSI and combustion: scripts, toolbars, plugins, mental ray shaders. Mostly for pipeline tools in animation and rendering. Tons of goodies to speed up the artist's work. Using Python, JScript, and a bit of html/xhtml, php, and C++.
  Also, I train artists on XSI, give them production methods.
• 

  Lighting Artist

  Meteor Studios

  January 2005 - May 2005

  Did the lighting on CG set extensions for the Fantastic Four (the first) movie.
• 

  Rendering Technical Director

  Action Synthèse

  March 2004 - November 2004

  Created tools for lighters using scripting in XSI, technical support for lighters to solve their daily problems (hair, shaders, etc, in XSI), research of solutions of fundamental issues with XSI (hair, memory map files, and shaders in workgroups), helped managing the render farm.
• 

  Lead Lighting Artist

  CinéGroupe

  March 2003 - March 2004

  Managed the lighters' team, trained them in lighting, helped them troubleshooting, lit some sets.
• 

  Texture Artist

  CinéGroupe

  October 2002 - March 2004

  UV unwrapping, texture painting and material creation of props and stage elements in 3ds max and photoshop.

• 3D generalist

  Twist Image

  June 2001 - January 2002

  Did the 3D work in SOFTIMAGE|3D for many adds, including Adrien Gagnon and Racine de Vie.

• 3D Generalist

  Productions Sylvain Fortin / Multivet Media

  March 2001 - June 2001

  Creation of 3D landscapes, set dressing, cameras, for a 20 minutes corporate video on the extraction of oil in the sands of Madagascar.