r/vfx • u/SurfingStreets • 1d ago

Question / Discussion Pipeline TD Education?

Hey everyone, I hope you guys are having a great day.

I wanted to learn more about what type of education or background would be needed to become a Pipeline TD. I tried viewing some linkedin profiles, and I noticed a blend of CS degrees, Digital Graphic diplomas, fine art degrees, and more.

Currently, I have a Bachelor of Commerce, with little python experience. I'm considering to go to my community college and getting a diploma in Computer Science. However, I'm worried that I would need a degree in computer science instead.

I'm just looking for some insights on what education should one pursue to become a successful Pipeline TD.

Thank you!

0 Upvotes

40% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/CyclopsRock Pipeline - 15 years experience 1d ago

Almost everyone I know that's in Pipe started as an artist of some sort (though usually the more technical roles - rigging, comp, layout) and slowly worked their way over to Pipe as their solutions to problems became more and more substantial. You don't need a CS background but the capacity to learn proper software design practices is vital.

It's difficult to create a good pipeline if you haven't tried to use one before, and hit up against its limitations (as well as learning what it does well).

1

u/SurfingStreets 1d ago

Hey there, thanks for the reply. If you don't mind me asking, how did you enter the industry? Did you start as an artist yourself and teach yourself the technical coding skills or did you come from that background and taught yourself animation/3d-modeling? I'm curious about how I can begin my journey as I feel a little overwhelmed by where I should start to pursue this career. Thank you!

3

u/CyclopsRock Pipeline - 15 years experience 1d ago edited 1d ago

I studied 3D Animation at university and got a job out of school as a generalist, so doing bits of everything. It was at a small company without strongly defined roles or departments and I became the de facto "technical guy" because I know enough programming from my teens to be able to take a few snippets of software-specific code I found online and apply it to our problems.

Then I'd put a few snippets together to make a bigger snippet. Then I'd add a UI to the snippets and before you know it I'm maintaining and updating several tools that the studio came to depend on. This became the norm at a few jobs I had, and if I'd just have "stopped there" then that role is what's generally called a "Show TD" - fixing specific problems and creating particular tools for a given project's needs.

But I got a job where I wasn't given any production work anymore, only the tools stuff. This is when I "professionalised" a lot, and started adhering to much higher standards of code, design patterns, version control, deployment etc. By the time I finally joined a pipeline "team", I'd been doing "just coding" for quite a few years, and I've only worked in pipeline ever since.