Pete Upson

Senior Technical Artist working on cutting-edge graphics and AI technologies.

• Building USD-based pipeline for Nvidia's Omniverse platform
• Creating interactive demos for the Executive Briefing Center at Nvidia's HQ
• Developing advanced rendering pipelines and real-time graphics solutions
• Collaborating with engineering teams on GPU-accelerated workflows
• Implementing AI-driven tools for content creation and optimization
• Creating technical documentation and training materials for new technologies

Global software development and tool support for all aspects of the Pixar pipeline, including Python tools for Houdini (VEX), Katana (Lua, Opscript, CEL), Maya (MEL, PyQt), Presto, Perforce, USD assets, and proprietary database interface tools (SQL).

• Coded customizable slate overlay plugin for Autodesk's OpenRV with production database integration
• Created pipeline for layout and lighting artists with custom USD attribute persistence
• Programmed exception catching and reporting for motion graphics pipeline
• Created automated PyQT guis for layout and character departments
• Conducted research and implemented AI Machine Learning workflowsin the studio pipeline
• Performed layout, lighting, comp, and rendering artist duties on multiple projects

Technical Artist on the Facebook/Meta Avatar sticker team. Collaborated with cross-functional engineering and art teams to create and manage artist pipelines for 2.5D and 3D Avatar Sticker character products.

• Built and managed artist/vendor pipeline between Maya, Photoshop, Blender, Illustrator, Perforce, Shotgrid, and Spark
• Programmed Photoshop menu plugins to automate designer tasks for thousands of assets
• Coded automated QA tool generating test images for creative review
• Prototyped first working animated sticker product with 3D Avatar team

• Spearheaded company-wide Star Wars franchise library reorganization
• Cut asset request turnaround from 2 weeks to 2 days
• Worked on Solo, Transformers: The Last Knight, Ready Player One, Clone Wars

• Managed 10-person team creating 3D and AR/VR medical products
• Managed projects ranging $100K-$1M+ budgets
• Client-facing manager for Novartis and Boehringer Ingelheim

Game of Thrones, Tales from the Borderlands, Minecraft: Story Mode, The Walking Dead

• Supervised 5-10 person in-house and remote creative teams
• Developed workflows and programmed tools in MEL and Python
• Worked on Madagascar, How to Train Your Dragon franchises

Beowulf 3D, Spiderman 3, Surf's Up, Monster House

• Piloted 3rd largest airframe in the world
• Supervised maintenance of $85M airframe
• Managed aircrews of up to 20 personnel