Mark Tucker
Senior Software Developer at Side Effects Software
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolMark Tucker is a Senior Software Developer with 12 years of professional experience specializing in computer graphics, software design, C++, and Python, currently based in Ottawa. He has spent the bulk of his career at Side Effects Software, bringing deep domain expertise in graphics tooling and plugin development. Mark has contributed to high-profile open-source efforts such as Pixar’s OpenUSD, adapting Houdini plugins for multi-version API compatibility and extending volume rendering support—work that bridges proprietary VFX tools and industry-standard scene description. His background includes architect-level responsibilities at FileTrek and senior engineering roles at GridIron, reflecting a mix of hands-on implementation and system design. Known for pragmatic engineering, he frequently tackles API portability and cross-version integration challenges that keep production pipelines robust. Colleagues rely on him for reliable, maintainable solutions in complex graphics codebases.
12 years of coding experience
5 years of employment as a software developer
University of Toronto SchoolsUniversity of Waterloo
Github Skills (6)
plugin-development10
c-language10
api10
cprogramming-language10
usd9
volume-rendering7
Programming languages (4)
Github contributions (5)
PixarAnimationStudios/OpenUSD
Oct 2017 - Jun 2022
Universal Scene Description
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:19 reviews, 101 commits, 104 PRs in 4 years 9 months
Contributions summary:Mark primarily focused on modifying and adapting the Houdini plugin to compile against different versions of the Houdini API. Their work involved updating headers and code related to the GU_PackedUSD class, which is part of the Houdini plugin for USD. These changes allowed the plugin to support both Houdini 16.0 and 16.5, ensuring compatibility with multiple Houdini versions. In addition to API compatibility changes, the user made contributions to the volume rendering features, including creating Hd classes to represent volumes.
universal-scene-descriptionscene
sideeffects/HoudiniUsdBridge
Sep 2019 - Jan 2023
Houdini libraries that must be recompiled to use Houdini with a custom build of the USD library.
Contributions:66 commits, 5 PRs, 64 pushes in 3 years 4 months
houdiniusd
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