Pipeline TD · Technical Generalist · Software developer

Dan Segal

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

Open to full-time & contract · Relocation ready

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. 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

19+

Years in CG / VFX

200+

Artists supported in production

~40%

Asset mismatch reduced

~50%

Env failures reduced

Experience

Production pipelines under real deadlines.

Feb 2026 — Present

Segal Communications

Owner · Pipeline TD · Software developer

Serbia · B2B / Contract

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).

Aug 2017 — Present

Pipeline TD & Consultant

Independent

Remote / On-site

Pipeline development across USD and traditional stacks (Maya, Houdini, Blender, Arnold, RenderMan, Nuke) for commercial projects.
Technical audits and diagnostics for mid-size studios (NDA).
Render pipeline efficiency improvements — ~20% compute reduction.

May 2024 — Jul 2025

YARKO Animation Studio

CG Pipeline Developer

Moscow

CG Pipeline Developer across YARKO shows — Doctor Dinosaurs (Доктор Динозавров), Motomars, Command Match, and other productions that needed pipeline help; trailer linked below.
Owned ~90% of pipeline support tickets for 200+ artists: triage, fixes, crashed/broken scene recovery, and unblocking departments under deadline pressure.
Built and maintained production pipelines across Maya, Houdini, Nuke — USD and traditional flows, publish tools, farm submitters, 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
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
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.

Selected production

Doctor Dinosaurs

YARKO Animation Studio · CG Pipeline Developer

Feature animation series I supported as CG Pipeline Developer — publish, farm submit, denoise tooling, Deadline, and ~90% of artist tickets.

Watch trailer

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

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

Ruleset 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 Report

Light 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

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.

GitHub My commit

Education

BCAC

2005 — 2009

Architecture Diploma / Technician-Architect

Technical drafting, CAD, and structural logic.

Languages

Contact

Let’s talk production

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