Lighting at MPC

Lighting are often the linchpin of CG that can make or break an individual shot. With the help of our Asset and Lookdev teams we take flat grey animation and FX playblasts integrating them into real world environments seamlessly.  

We employ the winning combo of Renderman and Katana to do the bulk of our work, accompanied by a plethora of custom, industry-leading MPC tools,

The Lighting team is a warm, friendly working environment where everyone rallies together to get the job done. Its a supportive environment that thrives on new ideas and personal development good communication skills are a must, the will to succeed along with razor sharp organization and a natural eye for the word around us

If you have a good understanding of how images are composed, you will do well in lighting so games, architectural rendering photography and even set lighting may offer a path into the department from other industries.  

Applicants need to show their potential for creating photo-real lighting on a CG element which matches a background plate. Showing strong look development skills, i.e. creating the look and feel of a CG element to appear photo-real is also important. Finally an excellent understanding of rendering is essential.

For lighting, the key areas to focus on are the matching of light direction, texture and exposure with a specific focus on colour and shadow and highlights quality. For lookdev focus on both technical setup and artist interpretation, showing a photo-real CG asset. Finally, for rendering, the main focus should be on quality. A lack of noise, render-pass setup and functionally all with a good understanding of optimization for speed and memory control.

Lookdev should exist in a 'physically plausible' environment. Shaders should be build to adhere to the natural laws of physics as much as possible and with a clear focus on things such as BxDF, IoR, Albedo and Fresnel. A good selection of reference examples showing different materials is very useful with the original real object composited next to the CG render. Include things like rusty metal, glass, skin, water, car paint, wood, fire, smoke, hair, and fur.

Lighting, like lookdev, should exist in a 'physically plausible' environment. A good understanding of photographic terminology such as f/stops, exposure and fall-off is important. Other areas to focus on include the use of blockers, gobos and projectors. A good understanding of HDR images and their use in the lighting process is essential.
As with other disciplines, showing breakdowns is imperative to explain what's been done. For this discipline, focus on lights rather than passes. i.e. key, fill and back lights as opposed to diffuse, specular and reflection passes.

A strong understanding of either Maya, Katana or Houdini is important, not just in the areas of lookdev and lighting but as a broader skillset too. Knowing a mainstream renderer like RenderMan, V-Ray or Arnold is essential though. Mental Ray is useful as well. Finally having a good understanding of a nodal based compositing tool such as Nuke or Fusion is helpful.

Connect with our team to find out more about available roles.

Michael Jalbert - Talent Acquisition Manager (Canada and London) 

Click below to read an interview with Bhavika, our lead Lead TD

What's it like to work at MPC - check out our Culture page below...

Apply for a role in Lighting below...