Description
Design and produce visual effects for film, TV, games, and ads, creating physically based simulations and procedural FX that integrate seamlessly with live action and CG.
- • Design and simulate particle, rigid-body, cloth, fluid, and destruction FX (fire, smoke, dust, debris, water, explosions).
- • Build procedural FX setups and reusable tools in node-based apps like Houdini, using VEX or Python.
- • Create and manage caches, instances, and FX layers; optimize sims for speed, stability, and memory.
- • Light, shade, and render FX elements; output AOVs, mattes, and holdouts for downstream teams.
- • Integrate FX into plates in compositing software, matching color, grain, lighting, and depth.
- • Matchmove and align simulations to cameras and geometry using tracking and layout data.
- • Plan shots with FX previs and animatics; communicate timing, scope, risks, and dependencies.
- • Collaborate with animation, lighting, modeling, and compositing to ensure visual and technical continuity.
- • Capture reference, HDRIs, and textures; prepare assets with clean geometry, fracturing, constraints, and collision proxies.
- • Troubleshoot solver behavior and technical issues; debug collisions, scale, and substeps.
- • Maintain pipeline standards, naming, and version control; publish assets and document setups.
- • Estimate effort and deliver under tight deadlines; address supervisor and client notes iteratively.
- • Research and prototype new techniques, solvers, and workflows; evaluate plugins and real-time FX.
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Arts, Entertainment, & Design
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Tasks & skills:
O*NET occupational data (work activities, skills, knowledge).
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This site includes information from O*NET by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 license. Career Clutch has modified some of this information for student readability. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA.
Last reviewed: Jan 2026
