Profile
Rigging Artist and Pipeline Developer with 4+ years of AAA game development experience specializing in scalable Maya pipeline tools, workflow automation, mGear, MetaHuman facial systems, and Chaos Cloth.
Skills
Animation
Autodesk Maya, mGear, MotionBuilder, Houdini
Code
Python, Maya API, PySide/Qt, C++, Perforce API, Bash, Git
Unreal Engine
MetaHuman, Chaos Cloth, Control Rig
Education
Rochester Institute of Technology · B.F.A. Film and Animation · August 2018 - May 2022
Professional Experience
Rigging Artist / Pipeline Developer
Worked on Star Wars: Zero Company, initially as the sole Rigging Artist before becoming the primary pipeline developer for the character modeling, gameplay animation, and cinematic animation teams.
- Created and maintained production-ready customizable rigs covering nearly the full in-game roster: 48 MetaHuman facial rigs + accompanying hairstyles (both human and alien), 15 droids, 7 vehicles, most creatures, and several dozen weapons and props ranging from simple hand-props to complex mechanisms.
- Implemented Chaos cloth and dynamic joints for 24 hairstyles and outfits.
- Designed 17 custom mGear modules to help meet the animation needs of the diverse cast of characters.
- Built an Asset Manager tool within Maya that emulates Unreal's in-game character customization system, letting animators quickly preview and swap character/prop components via saved presets and Perforce-aware asset syncing. Cut scene setup time from several minutes to seconds.
- Developed a DCC-agnostic Batch Script Processor with dynamic UI generation and Perforce changelist integration, saving hours to days of manual processing time.
- Created a MetaHuman head-transfer tool using the DNA Calibration API to retarget heads, blendshapes, and joint positions between differently-shaped heads, saving hours of manual work per asset.
- Authored two dozen standalone and batch script processor tools, including the Asset Manager and MetaHuman transfer tool above, adopted across the rigging, character modeling, cinematic animation, and gameplay animation teams.
3D Virtual Reality Research Assistant
Rigged and programmed game-ready assets for educational use in virtual reality.
- Rigged game-ready assets to be suitable for VR.
- Programmed interactive functionality into VR assets for educational use in Unreal Engine.
Render Wrangler
Monitored and maintained render farm operations supporting multiple concurrent animation projects.
- Diagnosed rendering, pipeline, and software issues affecting student productions.
- Collaborated with artists and technical staff to resolve complex rendering failures and workflow problems.