Senior Creature TD (Rigging focus)

Description

Weta Digital's internationally renowned Creatures Team has been responsible for bringing some of the most memorable creatures brought to screen in recent years.

We are currently looking for a Senior Creature TD with a rigging focus.

Applicants should be experienced and passionate about rigging both creatures and mechanical objects.

They should have broad knowledge of rigging bipedal and quadrupedal creatures, in addition to having experience in mechanical rigging.

It would be an advantage to have a broad anatomical knowledge and be well versed in creation and simulation of skeletons, muscles, and skin.

Working in a flexible team environment a Senior Creature TD with rigging focus is responsible for developing rigging modules and building and rigging puppets. 

They need to work closely with the animation and other motion departments leads, to define the specification of control structures and rig functionality. 

There should be a close collaboration with other Creature TDs to ensure modules create anatomically correct results (where applicable).

They must be capable of writing robust rigging modules to create complex behaviors, with a focus on performance and optimisation. 

Applicants must have a solid understanding of linear algebra and be able to apply their understanding to produce highly optimised puppets.

A Senior Creature TD needs work closely with various departments, especially animation, and maintain good working relationships with these departments to ensure that the deliverables to them are of a consistently high quality and match the agreed specification. 

Must have:

Strong scripting and debugging skills

• 5 years or more as a full time senior creature TD/rigging TD/lead on feature films
• Experience in writing modules for creatures and mechanical rigs
• Experience with skinning and deformation of photo realistic characters and/or creatures
• Poweruser in Maya
• Poweruser in Python scripting
• Linux experience
• C++ experience

Nice to have

• Experience in Muscle, Fat, Skin simulation
• Experience in Cloth and Hair simulation
• Must be able to work well in a team environment
• Must be willing to relocate to New Zealand