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​​​PATRICK PELUSE             

                    Senior Technical Artist | Developer | Realtime & Offline Rendering | Synthetic Data | ML Pipelines | AR/VR/MR                       ​​

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SUMMARY

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Experienced Technical Artist specializing in real-time rendering, character rigging, and synthetic data pipelines for AR, VR, MR, and gaming with over 20 years experience in computer graphics. Proficient in Unreal Engine, Unity, Maya, V-Ray, and Substance. Compositing, VFX, gaming pipelines. Scripting expertise in Python, C#, and MEL. Developed scalable render pipelines and simulation tools for machine learning projects, and effectively resolved complex technical challenges supporting art and engineering teams.

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EXPERIENCE

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Senior Technical Artist — Skybound Entertainment
Los Angeles, CA • Oct 2023 – Jun 2025

  • Led UE5 rendering for Invincible VS characters; designed, proposed, and built scalable shader/material pipeline. Custom eye, hair, body, damage, blood, custom Material Layer Blend system. Custom rimlight, toon, shaders. Look dev support.

  • Optimized Lumen lighting, overall asset optimization, naming, and standardization for performance targets.

  • Character and Prop rigging to support project goals. Mgear, Custom Rigs.

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Founder / Developer — Simsara
Pittsburgh, PA • Oct 2022 – Current

  • Architected a modular, Python-based quantitative research and trading simulation platform (Pandas, NumPy, scikit-learn, GPT-based APIs) supporting back-testing, live execution, and ML-driven strategy evaluation.

  • Developed containerized microservices (Docker) for scalable data ingestion, labeling, and distributed compute.

  • Integrated immersive data exploration with Unity/Unreal Engine and VR/3D visualization tools. ML Agents, Physics, Rigging, Training, Inference in Unity.

  • Automated pipelines for synthetic data generation and annotation, leveraging photogrammetry (COLMAP, RealityCapture, Metashape) and procedural content tools.

  • Deliver scalable solutions for analytics and training. Modular back-testing, live-execution simulation, adaptive ML-driven strategy evaluation, fully auditiable.

  • Brand and full CMS Web Backend.

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Senior Technical Artist IV — Oculus Research / Reality Labs
Pittsburgh, PA • Mar 2018 – Jan 2023

  • Data generation for machine learning both real-time and offline in Unity HDRP and Maya Vray Next.

  • Managed design end to end development of Realtime Simulator, QA, Training Data, Future Headsets, and Capture Systems. Lead developer, coding, rigging, assets, scenes rendering optimization, VR.

  • Setup batch rendering systems and scripting for both local rendering, internal farm, and cloud.

  • Look Development for dataset generation. Multiview Realistic Indoor Environments, 3dsmax, Day to Night for NERFs and 3d reconstructions. Custom JSON export camera intrinsic, extrinsic, and render optimization.

  • C# Scripting, Python, Rigging, Animation Re-targeting, QA, Art Direction, Custom Tool Creation.

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Senior Technical Artist / Prototype Developer — Magic Leap
San Francisco, CA • Apr 2014 – Nov 2017

  • Make prototypes using game engines Unity for gesture recognition, computer vision.

  • Rendering and pipeline of synthetic data, hands and env for machine / deep learning.

  • C# Scripting, Rigging, Animation, UI/UX, Art Direction, Tool creation for researchers.

  • Ensure new tools and technology are pipeline efficient and deliver the best possible results for teams.

  • Rigging for Realtime full body locomotion game, Animation, Executive AR Demos, UI/UX, and Conceptual Drawings.

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Lead Technical Artist — Meta Vision
Portola Valley, CA • Nov 2013 – Jan 2014

  • Created CG elements. Modeling, Textures, Created Shaders, Materials, and performed Rigging tasks for AR Space Glasses.

  • Animated things. UI and UX Design and integration.

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Multiple Roles — Digital Domain
Port St. Lucie, FL • Feb 2011 – Sep 2012

  • Stereoscopic Animator (1 year): Converted source film to 3d stereoscopic viewing. Rotoscope and 2d tracking, Animate objects in 3d space. Create Clean Plates, 2d Tracking, 3d Tracking, Color Keying, Re-grain Film.

  • Look Surfacing / Texture and Sculpting (6 months): Texture / Sculpt hi-res animal and foliage models for upcoming feature “The Legend of Tembo.” Assist in pipeline development and testing stages.

  • Generalist Assignment (1 month): Assist in the development of 2012 Pathfinder Award Presentation. Model, Texture, Light, Animate Cameras, Render, and Composite final passes together.

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Junior Engineer (Localization), 3ds Max team — Autodesk (Media & Entertainment Division)
San Rafael / San Francisco, CA • Oct 2004 – 2007

  • Created GUI's for Essential Skills Video tutorials shipped with all localized versions of 3dsMax9.

  • Leveraged program files for the localized versions of 3dMax 7, 7.5, 8, 8.5, 9. Performed Black Box testing QA.

  • Created test scripts, located bugs, created reports, and reconfigured 3dsmax for proper functionality.

  • Localized all graphics for the New Feature Guide, Reference, and Tutorials for 3dsMax 7.

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SELECTED PROJECTS

  • Interactive Development Kit (IDK) — Co-creator; integrated custom microcontroller and custom sensor suite into UnityGame Engine and other applications using C# and Python; built demos and prototypes. Search "interactive development kit" on kickstarter.com. bit.ly

  • Gorant Chocolatier — Designed and developed full e-commerce site using PHP, CSS, and MySQL.

  • Pathfinder Award Presentation — Modeled, textured, lit, animated cameras, and composited final sequences.

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PUBLICATIONS

  • Constraining Dense Hand Surface Tracking with Elasticity, SIGGRAPH Asia (Dec 2020). Hand rigging, UVs, Synthetic Multicamera Renders.

  • SelfPose: 3D Egocentric Pose Estimation from a Head-Mounted Camera, IEEE TPAMI (Nov 2020). Rendered additional Synthetic third person view including depth.

  • xR-EgoPose: Egocentric 3D Human Pose from an HMD Camera, ICCV (2019). Created simulator and dataset for training data.

  • Information-Theoretic Online Multi-Camera Extrinsic Calibration, IEEE RA-L (2022). Unity based Simulator, Bodies and Rigging, Camera Rig, Animation Retargeting, Ground Truth Data, Environment and Rendering setup using HDRP.

  • Mutual Scene Synthesis for Mixed Reality Telepresence, arXiv (Apr 2022).

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CERTIFICATIONS | LICENSES

  • AI For Everyone — Coursera (2019)

  • OpenCV School — ongoing ML certifications

  • Commercial Driver’s License (CDL-A), Class A 

    • Status: Unrestricted Manual Transmission (Tested on 10-speed; No "E" Restriction)

    • Endorsements: XT (Hazmat, Tanker, Doubles/Triples)

    • Performance: Completed all written and skills tests on the First Attempt (1&D).

    • Qualifications: Air Brakes, Combination Vehicles, Liquid Bulk, Hazardous Materials, Multi-Trailer Sets.

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EDUCATION

  • Academy of Art University — Masters in Fine Arts, 3D Modeling, Gaming, Texture Painting, Conceptual Art Studies (Dec 2010 - Present coursework, not completed)

  • Academy of Art University — Bachelors in Fine Arts, 3D Modeling, Texture Painting, Rendering, Traditional Art Studies, May 2008

  • ITT Technical Institute — Associates in Specialized Technology Degree, Information Technology – Multimedia, Jun 2003 (GPA: 3.95, Highest Academic Honors)

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CORE SKILLS

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Rigging & Animation
Advanced facial/body rigging (FK/IK, root-driven, quaternion-based), retargeting (Xsens, MotionBuilder), Leap Motion SDK, real-time animation pipelines, FBX export, Mgear, custom rigs, skinning human/non-human assets.

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Rendering, Lighting & Look Development
PBR workflows (Substance Painter/Designer, Marmoset, Shader Forge), advanced lighting and rendering (Vray, Arnold, Redshift, Mental Ray, Unity HDRP, Unreal Lumen), custom pipelines for synthetic data and deep learning (Unity, Vray).

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Modeling, Texturing & Digital Sculpting
High-to-low poly workflows, retopology, advanced UV mapping, NURBS & polygon modeling (Maya, ZBrush, Mudbox), photogrammetry & reality capture (COLMAP, RealityCapture, Agisoft Metashape, Meshroom).

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Synthetic Data & Machine Learning Pipelines
Data generation for machine learning (real-time & offline in Unity HDRP and Maya Vray Next), custom pipelines for synthetic data/deep learning, multi-view realistic indoor environments, ML Agents, Physics, Rigging, Training, Inference in Unity.

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Programming & Scripting
Python, C#, MEL, Bash, HTML, PHP, MySQL, ActionScript 3, OpenCV, HLSL, Micro Python.

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AR/VR/MR Development
Unity (mobile/PC/VR/AR), Unreal Engine (Blueprints), 3D browser UI, Magic Leap, Meta Vision, ARKit, ARCore, OpenVR, Oculus SDK.

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Pipeline & Workflow
Git, Perforce, Shotgun, Docker, microservices, asset optimization, naming conventions, custom tool/pipeline development, batch rendering systems.

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Software & Tools
Maya (6.0–2023), 3ds Max (4.0–2017), Zbrush, Mudbox, Marvelous Designer, Wrap 3D, Mechanim, EMotionFX, Fuse, Unreal Engine (3, 4, 5.2, 5.5), Unity (2013– 6 HDRP), NukeX, Mari, Adobe Photoshop/After Effects/Premiere Pro.

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Applied & Technical Studies
Color theory, human/animal anatomy, look development for characters and environments, game development, pose estimation, scalable synthetic data.

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Operating Systems
Windows, OSX, Linux, Lumen OS, Android SDK, Docker

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