Mark Manca Email & Phone Number

Emeryville, California, Us

Working to transform RenderMan's strategy to allow it to continue to be the renderer Pixar and the wider Media and Entertainment industry needs to deliver increasingly complex projects on tighter delivery timelines and budgets. The rendering marketplace is evolving rapidly, with disruptive technology causing paradigm shifts in how rendering is done.I am working on RenderMan's strategy, and together with the Engineering team, the best way to evolve the historic renderer to a place where it continues to lead the category for the next 10 years by bringing interactivity and performance to artists. All the while maintaining its DNA of giving artists and TDs ultimate freedom to create images to support the stories being told.

Emeryville, California, Us

RenderMan is the software used to calculate the color of every pixel in Pixar’s films. I brought a culture of understanding of the broader marketplace and product management mindset to the team for the first time. I set strategy and inspired the team for the next evolution of RenderMan so may continue to play an important role within storytelling.* Led product strategy to bring interactive rendering to RenderMan. RenderMan is over 30 years old and competes in a marketplace that is quickly evolving and commoditizing. Developed a strategy for an "XPU" renderer - use combined GPU and CPU compute resources for optimum performance and artist interactivity.* Improved the relationship between the RenderMan team and the artists and technologists at the Studio by listening to their needs. Instituted feedback sessions with groups such as Supervisors of various production teams, and various groups in the Tools department. Evolved RenderMan’s strategy based on feedback.* Worked with Senior Executives and the RenderMan team to agree on strategy and schedule to deliver the next generation of RenderMan after interviews of Pixar's Studio stakeholders, external customers, and industry analysis.* Led technical relationship with partners such as SideFX. Most critically, made sure that RenderMan was ready for strategic vendor initiatives such as Solaris. SideFX told us we had the best third-party integration to their software.* Motivated the team during our multi-year development schedule. Got the team past initial "no" responses to “yes” ideas that worked to deliver our strategy. For example, I lead the team to execute to support USD within RenderMan.* Led effort to re-price RenderMan to better align with the market.* Raised issues as a part of an interim leadership team, and worked to solve them -- including scheduling and strategic product direction issues.

London, Gb

Strategically evolved MPC’s software stack to position MPC for the changing business and technical requirements of the highly competitive + low margin VFX industry. Brought a focus on standard technology and best practices from others so MPC didn’t need to build everything themselves to address marketplace and talent shifts.* Led the Canadian Lighting, Compositing, and Matte Painting software development team. as well as the Animation, Rigging, and Technical Animation software development team.* Recognized the risk of too much custom software in MPC’s pipeline because of the technical brain drain in the VFX industry. Encouraged and led an early exploration of how USD (Universal Scene Description) could be used in MPC’s pipeline, with the goal of eventually replacing MPC’s bespoke asset definition.* Prioritized software requests with the Heads of Departments; juggled competing needs in an environment defined by the film production deadlines. Prioritized requests that would improve artist efficiency in order to reduce production costs.* Led a team of Senior, Mid-level, and Junior developers. Helped juniors grow and helped seniors evolve into leaders.* Led incubation of a game-engine based procedural geometry layout tool.* Communicated feature needs, bugs, and performance issues with vendors.* Implemented handling of subframe geometry and transform caches within Katana. Reduced node count to improve performance.* Brought greater stability and performance to MPC's in-house fur/hair toolset.Technology: Katana, Maya, C++, Python, RenderMan, Linux

Infused apps with my passion for mobile devices. Wrote my first mobile app in 1998 by tying together a webcam to an early Windows CE device to upload photos to a travel log.* Created beautiful user experiences. Reviews of several of my apps:- Earth. Visualized.: "Excellent. Is an application useful and cutting-edge, full of very interesting information...Kudos to the developer!" (translated from Italian)- timeme: "This is the best time tracker I have used on a mobile device."- Earth Alarm Clock: "Amazing job on the visuals - hands down the most 'ooooh's from my friends." "One of the best apps I have ever seen on the Z10."Platforms: Android, some iOS, BlackBerryTechnologies: C++, Java, OpenGL, Amazon Web Services

Los Angeles, Ca, Us

Part of the team responsible for extending the production pipeline to meet the needs of individual shows. Extended the pipeline to make artists more efficient.* Added metadata throughout the pipeline. Prototyped ability for an artist to mouse over pixels in RV to see the history of what assets went into making it.* Created automated quality control renders that execute after animation is published. Optimized render performance on the farm.* Further integrated Katana, Maya, Mari, RV and Nuke to Digital Domain's asset management system.* Built a system to allow Lookdev artists to publish shaders from Mari.Technology: Python, OpenGL, Katana, Arnold, VRay, RV, Maya, Mari, Nuke, Shotgun, Linux

Developed white-labeled mobile and web apps for the restaurant industry to help them connect to their customers and foster repeat business. "Your brand, your application."* Identified and quantified market opportunity; developed pricing models; determined different revenue streams - monthly fee, per-transaction percentage, and kickbacks from credit card processors.* Marketed our product by helping restauranteurs see the future -- providing convenience to people in an evermore connected world would help foster repeat business.* Managed contributors and implemented prototypes on Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, and in the web browser.Technology: Java, Java Servlets, PHP, MySQL, Eclipse, Objective-C, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, Wikis

San Jose, Ca, Us

Helped to deliver the strategy and products within Adobe’s Enterprise Software business. Inspired and directed international teams. Delivered complex enterprise software on time. * Led definition of product strategy within the Enterprise Software business. Performed customer interviews, secured buy-in from Marketing, Engineering, and the Executive Team.* Inspired and motivated the 150 personalities with internal and outsourced Engineering, Quality, User Interface, and Documentation teams in many different geographies to deliver products -- Ottawa, California, India, Australia, and China.* Together with the Marketing team, demonstrated to the analyst community how Adobe was a leader in the Business Process Management software market.* Helped found the Adobe Ottawa Idea Champions Club. Promoted an idea for a service to help designers to better interact with their clients. Technology: Java, Eclipse, Adobe Flex, ActionScript, Wikis, Content Management Systems, Workflow Systems

San Jose, Ca, Us

* Travelled to SAP (an important Adobe partner) in Germany on a regular basis as a technical liaison. Helped define product direction by feeding requirements back to the server and client Product Management and Engineering teams.* Developed plugins for Adobe Reader and Acrobat to allow it to integrate with SAP’s HTML web application front-end.Technology: C++, COM, Java, J2EE, Eclipse, JavaScript, XML, XSLT, Microsoft Office, Windows

San Jose, Ca, Us

Helped customers see the future of automated dynamic imaging and document creation. Responsible for technical expertise and demonstration of the Adobe Graphics Server and the Adobe Document Server.* Worked with vendors on visual direction and technical content for demos that showed worldwide potential customers how to create automated graphics on a server using Photoshop templates.* Demonstrated integration with existing enterprise infrastructure and workflows.* Helped Marketing and Engineering to define marketing materials, white papers and engineering specifications.* Managed the creation of training material by an outsourced team.Technology: Microsoft Office, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Windows, Solaris, Java, Java Servlets, HTTP REST, Apache, Digital Asset Management Systems

Seattle, Wa, Us

Returned to the UW to assist with the computer animation courses being offered. We completed an eight minute short film on a very tight 10 week time schedule.* Given the story, defined steps required to complete the film, assigned people work, and managed personnel.* Acted as a Technical Director, the Layout Department, Editor/Animatic creator, and Render Wrangler for student-created short film.* Assisted in curriculum and tutorial development for a visual effects portion of the computer animation classes.Technology: Maya, Premiere, Windows

Gained expertise in many different aspects of the software development cycle. EAI produced CAD visualization software for enterprise customers in manufacturing.* Facilitated communication between Europe and the US as the European Technical Liaison to improve product sales and viability. * Developed extensions to software to facilitate collision checking between parts in complex assemblies.Technology: C++, COM, Windows, SGI/IRIX, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX

Seattle, Wa, Us

Effectively managed projects, lead other TAs on the teaching team. Determined how to best present complex material. Created lab assignments and sample solutions for:* Ray tracer - texture mapping, point lights, area lights, directional lights, spot lights w/umbra and penumbras, solid textures, stochastic sampling for anti-aliasing, * Animator - user could create animation curves for nodes within a VRML model.* Impressionist - using a picture as a base, allowed a user to interactively create a painterly representation of the source imageTechnology: C++, Maya, RenderMan, HTML, Windows, Unix (SGI/IRIX, DEC Alpha), Smalltalk, C, other programming languages

Us

Worked as a developer on VisMockUp, a program that allows real-time viewing of large CAD databases.* Designed, and implemented 3D stereoscopic extensions to enable virtual reality displays.* Created an automated, multi-platform build system.Technology: Motion capture systems, C++, Unix shell scripting, compilers, Make, SGI/IRIX, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX

Washington, Dc, Us

Wrote shell scripts and utilities to help manage warehoused seismic data. Wrote programs which access data via web and telnet bulletin-board services.