Jon Tojek

Work History

• 

  Lighting/Lookdev TD

  xyz

  March 2021 - March 2022
• 

  Realtime Artist Unreal Engine

  Halon Entertainment

  December 2020 - March 2021

  Los Angeles, California, United States

  UE4 Generalist and Lighter, working in teams on the upcoming Pinocchio film directed by Robert Zemeckis. This is a live action 2022 release where we did the entire PreViz with UE4, which allowed the director and his small team to run around the 3D world with headsets and virtual cameras every day blocking out scenes and directing the action.
• 

  Lighting TD - Unreal Engine - AR

  The Famous Group

  September 2020 - November 2020

  Los Angeles, California, United States

  Technical Lighting and Look Dev with Unreal Engine of animated characters for League of Legends Worlds 2020 live stadium event in Shanghai. This was a live event in front a huge audience where the virtual animated characters K/DA performed a pop song and remote audiences could watch in Augmented Reality. The animated characters were provided by Riot Games for us to light and add Niagra FX creating the best possible look that still could run in realtime for broadcast.

• Robot Programmer - Live Events, Entertainment, Experiential Marketing,

  andyRobot

  August 2014 - June 2020

  Greater Los Angeles Area DTLA

  Clients include: Adidas, Nike, ABB, Royal Caribbean, Kuka, The Grammy's (Performance w/Lady Gaga), Jon Bon Jovi, Dead Mouse, Bloomingdale's, Asian Music Awards, Ovation, ABB, Robomoco, 2047 APOLOGUE, Zhang Yimou, and JUPL-Nasa
  • Utilize Maya animation tools and proprietary software Robot Animator to design robot choreography for complex multi-robot performances, specializing in live events, installations, and concert/theatre performances
  • Synchronize complex robot motion with timecode, VFX animation, human performers, realtime particles, music, and multi-robot dances
• 

  3D Generalist - VR 360 Lighting, Look Dev, Photogrammetry

  Specular Theory, Inc.

  March 2018 - February 2020

  Los Angeles, California, United States

  Clients include: Byton automotive and the US Military
  • Utilized Maya, Nuke, and Arnold; animating and rendering airplanes to match and enhance real world footage
  • Modeled and textured a low-poly cockpit interior; created photo-realistic renders using Maya, V-Ray and baked out pre lit textures for the asset to be viewed in 360 stereo VR environment
  • Outdoor shooting HDR 360 panoramic light probes of Los Angeles skyline every 10 minutes as the sun set, photo stitching, Nuke cleanup, and color matching for later use in 3D and as plate backgrounds
  • On-set production of a car commercial; photographed dozens of 360 HDR panoramic light probes, shot photogrammetry scans of car interior, and rebuilt and relit car interior, per shot, for use in 360 stereo VR video
• 

  Senior CG Artist - Lighting

  Framestore

  July 2017 - August 2017

  Greater Los Angeles Area

  • Produced character lighting on the Hulk for a Renault car commercial; utilized tools Maya, Arnold, and Nuke to do lighting and look development for sweaty, green skin
  
  
• 

  Senior Lighting and Compositing TD

  Sony Pictures Imageworks

  February 2012 - April 2017

  Culver City

  Released in September of 2012, this animated feature stars Adam Sandler, Steve Buscemi, Selena Gomez and many others. I worked at Sony for 5 months doing lighting and compositing with Arnold, Katana, and Nuke. For the last two months they needed help with cloth and hair sims so I switched over to that in order to work in Maya, and learn some new techniques in cloth/hair that I would never discover on my own. By the end I finalled 12 shots lighting and compositing, along with 10 shots doing hair and cloth sims while gaining some new and deeper experien

  

  

  
• 

  Course Creation for Digital Tutors

  Digital-Tutors

  September 2012 - March 2017

  This course covers all aspects of rendering subsurface scattering with Mental Ray and Maya. Focusing on the creation of shader networks, this course shows specifically how to render SSS networks into AOV passes, as well as a hack to make human skin have red color bleed by simulating wavelength dependent scattering. An hour and 50 minutes of VFX render training that can potentially make you sleepy, but for sure help you render human skin more realistically.
  https://www.digitaltutors.com/11/training.php?pid=817
• 

  VR content creator - photogrammetry for Unreal Engine

  Autodesk

  October 2016 - December 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada Area

  • Scouted 10 interior and exterior locations under the direction of an Autodesk team
  • Shot a full photogrammetry environment (900+ photos) with 4 HDR panoramics for image-based lighting
  • Rebuilt a low-poly game ready asset with sharp clean 8k textures for Maya and Unreal Engine after the capture and processing in Reality Capture; assets are being used for VR tutorials and promotional videos via online site
  
• 

  3D Generalist, on set VFX supervisor, trainer

  FullFrame Filmes

  July 2012 - August 2014

  Rio de Janeiro Area, Brazil

  Clients include: (Brands) Gillette, Nike, Tim; (Feature Film) Pele, Birth of a Legend
  • CG Supervisor and 3D Generalist; assisted staff with lighting improvements and rendering workflows
  • On-set supervisor and data wrangler; shot VFX reference and HDR panoramics for lighting
  https://www.fullframefilmes.com/
• 

  Lighting and Generalist TD

  Brewster Parsons

  March 2013 - July 2013

  Los Angeles

  Worked with a team of five Maya artists and two great flame compositors to produce a long form commercial for Royal Caribbean and their newest cruise liner called Quantum of the Seas. I mainly was lighting and final rendering a photorealistic ship with Maya and Mental Ray, as well as lots of modelling, look development, and animation.
• 

  Lighting Technical Director

  Wētā FX

  September 2012 - December 2012

  Wellington New Zealand

  • Utilized Maya to produce the final edits of shots prior to film release; rendered in Renderman and used many proprietary Weta tools, which included testing bash comps in Nuke

  

  
• 

  Course Creation for Digital Tutors - now Pluralsight

  Pluralsight

  September 2011 - September 2012

  • Taught course that covers all aspects of rendering subsurface scattering with Mental Ray and Maya
  • Focused on the creation of shader networks, this course showed specifically how to render SSS networks into AOV passes, as well as a hack to make human skin have red color bleed by simulating wavelength dependent scattering
  
  https://www.digitaltutors.com/11/training.php?pid=817
• 

  Lighting Technical Director

  Lucasfilm

  February 2010 - June 2010

  Greater Los Angeles Area

  • Worked on the team responsible for Industrial Light and Magic on the film Super 8
  • Created lighting in the ILM proprietary software Lux with Renderman, and slap comps in Nuke finaling about 20 shots of the monster in the cave and the construction of the spaceship by flying debris
• 

  Lead 3D Generalist and Compositor

  Hydraulx

  January 2007 - June 2010

  • 3D Supervisor on commercial projects responsible for leading teams of 10+ people through all stages of production from tracking and modeling to lighting and final renders
  • 3D Generalist on films such as 2012 and Knight and Day responsible for creating complex sequences including water simulations, smoke and fire effects, look development, lighting, and compositing

  

  

  

  

  
• 

  Maya 3D Generalist

  Brewster Parsons

  January 2010 - March 2010

  Working as a Maya TD I came in for the final push on this job to animate, look develop shaders, and light this long running, beautiful Lexus car commercial for the Superbowl called Milestone.
• 

  3D Lead

  Psyop

  May 2008 - July 2008

  • Led a team of 3D trackers, lighters, and compositors, through all stages of an internationally shown high end BMW commercial
  
• 

  Lighting and Compositing TD

  Animal Logic

  July 2006 - October 2006

  • Hired as a lighter to push shots through the already built pipeline using Maya, Mayaman, Renderman, and Fusion to composite for Academy award nominated Happy Feet Here
  • Finalled many shots for the film, approved daily by director George Miller in a high intensity environment of productivity and successfully achieved deadlines
• 

  Senior Look Development and Lighting TD

  Sony Pictures Imageworks

  March 2003 - June 2006

  • Worked as Look Development artist on Polar Express, Monster House, and Beowulf
  • Partnered with a team to create standards for the style, look and feel of all 3D objects by creating and tuning materials and shaders
  • Created lighting and compositing shots that were approval by the director and appeared in the finished film

  
• 

  Maya 3D Lighter

  Method Studios

  July 2005 - August 2005

  • Used Maya with Mental Ray GI rendering to make shaders, light, and final render some animated characters for a Ford commercial

• Visual Effects Supervisor

  Estudios Mega

  October 1999 - June 2002

  • Facilitated training at a large post house that produced 2d/3d commercials, films, and music videos
  • Managed a team of 6 graphics artists using both SGI and PC platforms in the full range of post house work from meeting with clients, bidding for jobs, supervising FX film shoots, creating all manner of graphics, and delivering product on time
  • Utilized Maya, Composer, Flame, and general Adobe software
  
  
• 

  Alias Poweranimator 3D Generalist

  WildBrain

  September 1999 - October 1999

  • Built, animated, and toon rendered environments, characters, and foreground machines to be combined with cell animated Willie Wonka in a national candy commercial from Wildbrain Productions
  • All work was done with PowerAnimator and Wavefront Composer within SGI Octane workstations at home

• Product Specialist Maya Film and Video

  Alias/Wavefront - Silicon Graphics

  October 1997 - September 1999

  This job allowed me to work with Maya software long before public release and involved extensive bug testing, interface/usability suggestions, and in-depth use of all software features. Working primarily on the West Coast I did large audience presentations, made demo animations, and trained new Maya users at all the large studios including ILM, PDI, Pixar, Manex and others. During these two years I was also able to learn with professionals everywhere creating character animations and film effects allowing me to complete a 35mm short film "Let's Get Medic

• VFX supervisor

  Post FX

  1995 - 1997

  Leading a team of three other Alias animators and two compositors to produce all of the graphics needed for the output of one of Chicago's largest post production houses. Working directly with in-house and agency art directors this place produced a large volume of lush professional graphics work for corporate, ad agency, and broadcast clients. The tools here include all Alias 2d/3d software, Wavefront 3Design, SideEffects Ice/Action, Flint, and an endless variety of digital disks, tapes and editing equipment.

• Application Engineer

  Alias

  August 1993 - September 1995

  This job entails mastering all Alias 2D and 3D graphics programs with SGI Unix machines, such as PowerAnimator, Studio, Composer, Dynamation, and StudioPaint. I did technical support, product demonstrations, animation/design benchmarks, and customer training.

• 3D Generalist - Power Animator

  Cybertoons

  July 1992 - May 1993

  After graduating from UW Madison with my Electrical Engineering degree, I thankfully avoided all engineering job offers, and went to work the night shift for minimum wage at this leading edge post house. I had taught myself Alias Power Animator and Linux at school, so was immediately able to jump into working here making television commercials for radio stations, lottery, bingo, and banks.