Johnson Thomasson

Work History

• 

  Lead Virtual Production Developer

  The Third Floor

  October 2020 - Present

  Los Angeles, California, United States and Atlanta

  Supporting over a dozen concurrent shows globally using the Mercury pipeline.
  Continued expansion and optimization of asset and animation workflows to/from DCCs and Unreal.
  Responsible for maintaining and packaging TTF’s custom build of Unreal Engine.
  Author of 9 internal C++ plugins for Unreal.
  Developed workflows and automation for custom Unreal plugin building and distribution.
  Led discussions with partner vendors and clients to develop interoperability standards for Unreal content: mutually beneficial Unreal project structures / Perforce configuration.
  Developed custom Maya/Unreal LiveLink plugin. Consultant to Autodesk in re-design of open source Autodesk LiveLink for Maya.
  Leading or contributing to development on Virtual Camera in Unreal, extensions to VR Scouting in Unreal, HoloLens design review tool, real-time mocap visualization in Unreal.
  Supervising multiple developers across 4 timezones.
  Speaking engagements: ASC Event (2021), Realtime Conference (2021), Unreal Virtual Production Week (2022), SXSW (2021 and 2022)
• 

  Realtime Developer

  The Third Floor

  January 2020 - October 2020

  Los Angeles, California, United States

  Architect of Mercury pipeline, debuted on The Mandalorian Season 2, bridging animation and layout in Maya with lookdev, FX, lighting and rendering in Unreal. Proprietary scene description format, custom Maya exporter, leveraging FBX SDK to convert Maya animation to Unreal Level Sequence data. Lead developer in expanding this toolset to more shows.
  Designed and led development of Render Layer system in Unreal to enable postvis in engine.
  Designed PBR texture pipeline linking work in Substance Painter, Maya, and Unreal Engine.
  The Mandalorian S2, Supervising Technical Director (2019)
  The Book of Boba Fett, Lead Engineer (2020)
• 

  Virtual Production TD

  The Third Floor

  April 2017 - January 2020

  Los Angeles, California, United States

  High-intensity, client-facing role. Worked with top-tier directors like Marc Forster and Ang Lee. Virtual Camera prep and operation. Motion capture (Optitrack and XSens) operation. Motion control prep and on-set support. Programmed artist-facing tools and automation.
  Christopher Robin (2017)
  Justice League (2017)
  Gemini Man (2017 - 2018)
  The Mandalorian S1 (2018)
• 

  Postvis Artist

  The Third Floor

  January 2017 - April 2017

  Greater Los Angeles Area

  Postvis: full-stack, rapid VFX. Matchmove (PFTrack), anim, lighting, FX, and compositing. Techvis: integrated real-world parameters of production equipment to find solutions for achieving previs’d shots on-set. Generated technical visualizations of solutions to communicate plans with production team.
  Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)
  Aquaman (2017)
  Venom (2018)
  Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2018
  Dolittle (2018)
  Jungle Cruise (2018)

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

• Visual Effects Supervisor / CG & Comp Lead

  Mountain Dew / USC "A True Fan Finds His Home"​

  July 2016 - November 2016

  Los Angeles, CA

  VFX for 7 minute film in which main character has CG head replacement. 100 shots, restrictive budget, tight deadline from brand. Made presentation of VFX pipeline to Mountain Dew Senior Marketing Manager for approval. Served as on-set supervisor, VFX producer, lead CG lighter and compositor. Hired and managed remote artists in London and Beijing. Led 6 student artists at USC. Implemented Frame.io for online collaboration, Airtable for project tracking, and Zync for cloud rendering. Researched and supervised Facial Performance Capture for all CG characters.

• VR Game QA Developer

  Perilous Orbit

  August 2016 - September 2016

  Los Angeles, CA

  Tested “Pool Nation VR” for bugs. Inspected C++ source code in order to write a systematic testing document for future QA.
  

• Visual Effects Supervisor / CG & Comp Lead

  USC Thesis Film "When Pigs Fly"​

  September 2015 - June 2016

  Los Angeles, CA

  Supervised and produced 85 VFX shots including 3 CG characters for 17 minute film starring Glenn Howerton (”Always Sunny”). Hired and managed artists in 5 countries. Developed project management system that combined Excel, Trello, Google Drive. Also served as on-set sup, VFX producer, lead CG lighter and compositor. Mentored by Academy Award winning VFX Supervisor Mike Fink.
• 

  3D Intern

  FuseFX

  May 2015 - August 2015

  Learning the VFX pipeline. Training in 3DS Max, Zbrush, Mari, Vray. Animating, lighting, and rendering on the show Tyrant on FX.
• 

  3D Intern

  Artemple

  May 2015 - August 2015

  Culver City, California

• Independent Writer/Director/Editor/VFX

  Dog Canyon Films, LLC

  February 2012 - December 2014

  Starkville, MS

• IT Engineer

  Haas Outdoors, Inc.

  August 2010 - December 2013

  West Point, MS

• Independent Writer/Director/Editor/VFX

  Little Engine Film Studio

  January 2009 - May 2010

  Starkville, MS
• 

  IT Co-op

  Miller Transporters, Inc.

  January 2007 - August 2008