Building pipelines that get out of the way #
Good pipeline work is invisible. Artists stay in flow, shots move forward, and the infrastructure quietly does its job. When things go wrong it’s clear why, and when new work comes in the team is ready for it.
That’s the standard I hold myself to and what I bring to engagements.
What I do #
I work with studios on the design and implementation of Houdini-based pipelines, with a particular focus on USD and Solaris workflows. My background spans both sides of the department wall. I came up through effects work before moving into pipeline. This means I make decisions with artists in mind, not just architecture.
Engagements typically cover some combination of:
Pipeline design and architecture — high-level workflow design, USD scene structure, department handoff, asset and shot management strategy.
Houdini tooling — HDAs, artist-facing tools, automation frameworks, submission and rendering pipelines, Solaris/Hydra integration.
USD adoption — designing workflows that let artists work naturally without needing to become USD experts themselves.
Infrastructure and tooling — farm integration, cloud rendering, launcher systems, nightly automation, data management.
Training and documentation — upskilling sessions for TDs and artists, code review, pipeline documentation.
Team direction — working with leads and stakeholders, providing direction for dev teams, mentoring senior TDs.
How I work #
I write code intended to be read. That means clear structure, meaningful names, and comments that explain why rather than what. Pipelines outlive their authors, and I want the next person in the seat to understand what they’re looking at.
I prefer to stay close to the artists. The best pipeline decisions come from understanding how work actually moves through a show, and that means talking to the people doing it. I measure the success of a project by whether the department is running better when I leave than when I arrived.
I’m comfortable owning a large scope of work independently, and equally comfortable slotting into an existing team and contributing without disrupting what’s already working.
Background #
Twenty years across effects, animation, and pipeline at studios including Scanline VFX, Luma Pictures, DreamWorks Animation, and Iloura. I have led pipeline teams, architected full department workflows from the ground up, and shipped tools used daily by artists across large productions.
Recent focus has been on USD-native Houdini pipelines. I design the full stack from scene structure through to delivery, with an emphasis on minimising onboarding friction and maximising the usefulness of production tracking data.
I also built Isohedron’s own pipeline tools out of work done across these studios, so the software on this site reflects actual production experience rather than theoretical design.
Get in touch #
If you’re building something new, untangling something that’s grown unwieldy, or just want a second opinion on a direction you’re considering, I’m happy to have a conversation.