Pipeline TD · Technical Generalist · Software developer

Dan Segal

I keep VFX and animation pipelines stable — so artists ship shots, not tickets.

Hire meSee experienceResume PDF

Open to full-time & contract · Relocation ready

About

About

Pipeline TD with production experience in feature film and VFX environments. Focused on pipeline stability across USD/Solaris and traditional pipelines — not one stack only. I help production teams reduce failures, fix asset flow issues, and ensure reliable shot delivery under tight deadlines. DCC: Maya, Houdini, Nuke, Blender. Renderers: RenderMan, Arnold, Karma. Color: ACES / OCIO. Shading: OSL. Editorial/finishing: Premiere, Photoshop. Strong focus on debugging, production support, tool development, and system reliability.

Based in Serbia
Relocation ready: Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA, UK, Ireland, Scotland

Experience

Experience

Production pipelines under real deadlines.

Aug 2017 — Present

Pipeline TD & Consultant

Self-employed

Remote

  • Pipeline development (Maya, Houdini, Arnold, Nuke) for commercial projects.
  • Pipeline audits and diagnostics for mid-size studios (2023–2024).
  • AssetValidator — publish gate for VFX/CG: 500+ checks on USD, Alembic, FBX, textures, caches; PASS/FAIL with fix hints in GUI or CI.
  • Light Surgeon — C++ Maya plugin + farm CLI: pixel light contribution, dead/noisy lights, portals, hero-shot match, JSON reports for dailies.
  • Houdini-Lineage — cache provenance for Houdini: fingerprint SOP graphs, mark stale caches, recook only what broke.
  • RenderMan for Blender — contribution: denoiser refactor (per-pass features dict, safer feature keys).

May 2024 — Jul 2025

YARKO Animation Studio

CG Pipeline Developer

Moscow · Remote

  • Owned ~90% of pipeline support tickets for 200+ artists: triage, fixes, crashed/broken scene recovery, and unblocking departments under deadline pressure.
  • Built and maintained USD-based production pipeline across Maya, Houdini, Nuke — publish tools, farm submitters, and custom DCC utilities.
  • Wrote denoisers and related look/render tooling for Houdini and Nuke; shipped submitters and other production tools artists used daily.
  • Diagnosed and fixed Black EXR render artifacts affecting ~15% of frames; stabilized and repaired Deadline farm issues.
  • Reduced asset mismatch ~40% through pipeline standardization; integrated Ftrack + Zammad — ~30% overall ticket load reduction.
Doctor Dinosaurs — trailer

Jun 2022 — Jun 2023

VFX Digital

Lead Pipeline TD

  • Migrated production infrastructure to Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform.
  • Reduced environment-related failures by ~50%.
  • Implemented Redis/Mongo caching; improved DCC load and pipeline responsiveness.
  • Contributed to technical roadmap and production stability.

2007 — 2017

Earlier career

TD · Lighting / Rendering · Broadcast

  • Technical Director — DL Animation Studio (9 years): RenderMan / Mental Ray core pipeline across 40+ productions.
  • Lighting / Rendering TD — MYXA Animation Studio.
  • Technical Specialist — ARIS TV (broadcast graphics pipelines).

Skills

Core skills

What I bring into a studio on day one.

Pipeline Architecture

  • USD / Solaris and traditional pipelines
  • ACES / OCIO color pipelines
  • Publish, caching, asset integrity
  • Cross-DCC production workflows
  • Ftrack / ShotGrid · CI validation gates

DCC & Rendering

  • Maya, Houdini, Nuke, Blender
  • Katana (familiar) · Unreal Engine (learning)
  • RenderMan, Arnold, Karma
  • OSL · Premiere Pro, Photoshop

Languages & tooling

  • Python, C++, C, C#, Go
  • MEL · Qt / PySide
  • JavaScript, TypeScript, Node.js
  • Git · USD API · DCC plugins

Infrastructure

  • Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, AWS
  • Linux · Windows · Deadline
  • SQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis

Work

Studio context

Production I shipped with — trailer and day-to-day pipeline floor.

Pipeline tools

Nuke · Deadline — Custom farm submitter I wrote — Nuke to Deadline
Nuke · DeadlineCustom farm submitter I wrote — Nuke to Deadline
Maya — Yarko publish — USD / WIP gate
MayaYarko publish — USD / WIP gate
Maya — Publish success — asset versions logged
MayaPublish success — asset versions logged

Farm & support

Houdini · Deadline — Yarko submitter — ROP node sorting I built for Houdini
Houdini · DeadlineYarko submitter — ROP node sorting I built for Houdini
Zammad — Artist support tickets — pipeline triage
ZammadArtist support tickets — pipeline triage
Nuke — Shot in review — production graph
NukeShot in review — production graph

Tools

Free pipeline tool

Built for the ticket that starts with “it opens on my machine.”

Browser · Local scan · No upload

Reference Autopsy

Drop a Maya ASCII (.ma), Nuke (.nk), or USD ASCII scene and get every external path, unresolved env token, Windows/Unix mix, and basename collision — before you launch a DCC. Everything runs in your browser; the file never leaves your machine.

Open Reference Autopsy

Portfolio

Portfolio

Shipped tools — live product page and GitHub repos.

VFX/CG · Publish gate

AssetValidator

Commercial validation platform: 530+ built-in checks on USD, Alembic, FBX, textures, caches, audio. Same rules in GUI, CLI, DCC, and CI — PASS/FAIL with fix hints before assets hit render or publish.

Product site
AssetValidator main GUI — validate runCustom check plugins panelStudio ruleset editorPre-publish checklistRuleset profiles — studio & marketplace packs

Maya · C++ plugin · MIT

Light Surgeon

Not another Light Editor — answers which lights actually contribute in camera. Pixel autopsy, mute dead/noisy lights, portals, hero-shot match, JSON for dailies. Same engine in Maya and farm CLI.

GitHub
Light Surgeon Maya menu — Analyze, Mute Dead/Noisy, Write ReportLight Surgeon viewport HUD — dead / utility / rim contribution

Houdini · Cache provenance · MIT

Houdini-Lineage

Fingerprint the SOP graph behind File Cache. Why Stale names the parm/file that drifted. Green fresh, red stale, blue pinned — recook only what broke. Reverse Trace from .bgeo.sc on disk.

GitHub
Houdini-Lineage

Blender · Contribution · MIT

RenderMan for Blender

Not my project — Pixar RenderMan for Blender. My contribution: refactored the denoiser (rman_denoiser.py) to use a per-pass features dict, clarify logic, and add safety checks for feature keys.

GitHubMy commit
RenderMan for Blender

Education

Education

BCAC

2005 — 2009

Architecture Diploma / Technician-Architect

Technical drafting, CAD, and structural logic.

Languages

Languages

Contact

Let’s talk production

Studios looking for a Pipeline TD who bridges artists, tools, and infrastructure — reach out.