[1300] Technical Artist

Job Details

We are looking for a Technical Artist with strong rigging expertise to optimize character and creature workflows, ensuring high-quality deformation and animation performance. You will act as a bridge between artists and engineers, developing rigging systems, tools, and pipelines that enhance both creativity and efficiency.

• Character/Creature Rigging: Create advanced skeletal rigs, control systems, and deformation setups for characters, creatures, and props.
• Skinning & Weighting: Ensure clean and efficient skinning for complex models.
• Facial Rigging: Develop expressive facial animation systems (blend shapes, bone-based, or hybrid setups).
• Tool Development: Build Maya/Blender scripts (Python, MEL) to automate rigging and animation processes.
• Animation Support: Work closely with animators to refine rigs for usability and performance.
• Real-Time Optimization: Optimize rigs for game engines (Unreal, Unity) with techniques like LOD rigs and animation compression.
• Pipeline Improvements: Streamline rigging and animation workflows between DCC tools (Maya, Blender) and game engines.
• Technical Troubleshooting: Solve deformation, simulation, and performance issues related to rigs.

Job Requirements

• 3+ years as a Technical Artist or Rigging TD in games, film, or VFX.
• Expertise in Rigging & Skinning:
  – Body/facial rigging (biped/quadruped).
  – Corrective blendshapes and dynamic rigs (jiggle, cloth, hair).

• Software Proficiency:
  – 3D Tools: Maya, Blender(Preferred), 3ds Max.
  – Game Engines: Unreal Engine, Unity (animation state machines, control rigs).
  – Scripting: Python (PyMel), C# (for Unity tools).

Bonus Skills:

• Experience with motion capture cleanup and retargeting.
• Knowledge of procedural rigging (Houdini, Unreal Control Rig).
• Understanding of physics-based animation (ragdolls, cloth, soft-body).

Nice-to-Have:

• Experience with real-time cinematic animation (MetaHuman, Unity Humanoid).
• Shader/rendering knowledge for character materials.

Portfolio Requirements:

• Demo reel or examples showcasing rigging work (game/film projects preferred).
• Breakdown of technical solutions (e.g., custom tools, deformation fixes).