LookDev Supervisor

Description

Position at DNEG

At DNEG, Look Development brings digital assets to life by combining technical expertise with artistic sensibility. As a Look Development Supervisor, you will guide the creative and technical standards for lookdev across productions, ensuring assets are visually striking, production-ready, and pipeline-efficient.

You’ll work closely with surfacing, modeling, and creature departments to define workflows, mentor artists, and ensure consistency across shows. This role blends hands-on lookdev with supervisory responsibilities, setting best practices, supporting artists, working on assets and collaborating with pipeline and technical teams to streamline workflows globally.

Key Responsibilities

• Supervise and mentor LookDev artists, providing creative and technical guidance.
• Partner with modeling, texturing, and creature teams to ensure assets meet production needs and integrate smoothly into shots.
• Define and maintain look development standards for shaders, materials, and rendering.
• Collaborate with workflow and pipeline teams to ensure tools and templates are artist-friendly and production-ready.
• Oversee the creation of templated solutions for common asset types (e.g., digital doubles, hero creature …).
• Ensure assets are efficient, physically plausible, and scalable across multiple shows and global locations.
• Review and troubleshoot lookdev work to balance artistic goals with technical constraints.
• Encourage a collaborative environment, fostering communication between creative and technical groups.
• Contribute to the development of shader libraries, material libraries, and lookdev templates across key applications (Maya, Houdini, Mari, Substance, Nuke).
• Maintain an awareness of emerging technologies and influence adoption of new workflows.

Must-Haves

• Previous VFX industry experience in look development, with a strong portfolio of work on feature films.
• Solid understanding of look development fundamentals: shading, texturing, rendering, lighting integration.
• Strong experience with Maya and Houdini Solaris.
• Knowledge of Mari (and ideally Substance Painter/Designer).
• Deep understanding of physically plausible rendering, shading efficiency, and asset handoff requirements.
• Familiarity with RenderMan shading and rendering workflows.
• Ability to diagnose and solve technical issues throughout the production process.
• Proven ability to lead and mentor teams in a collaborative, deadline-driven environment.
• Understanding of the VFX pipeline as a whole, and experience collaborating across departments.

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience shading fur, hair, and complex materials.
• Knowledge of USD workflows in production.
• Scripting or shader writing (Python, VEX, OSL …).
• Strong knowledge of colour, grading, and lighting workflows.
• Experience working in Linux production environments.
• Interest in real-time technologies and their role in look development.

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Please note that this is a unionized position and will be covered by a collective agreement between DNEG and IATSE, in the coming months. As a unionized employee, you will be required to join the union and will benefit from the conditions set out in the collective agreement. Union dues will be required once the collective agreement is in place.

The base salary range for this full-time position is $150,000 to $175,000. DNEG salary ranges are determined by function, department, level, and location. An individual's pay within a given range is determined by their transferrable or job-related skills and work experience. Salary ranges are modified from time to time based on external market data collected through our third-party surveys.