Addressing the first question: what is my line? Although I am still not entirely set on the exact line that I am still very interested in Rigging. Despite what my final line will eventually be, I would like to develop this interest into an industry standard so that I can have a broad range of skills.
In order to understand whether I am compatible for this job role I need to do two bits of research. One is to list the skills I have.
The next is to list the skill requirements necessary for high end rigging jobs
Compare the skills that match up.
And finally, for the things that are missing- how do I go about improving myself to meet the requirements?
My Skills
Having a maths and physics background, I would consider myself to have a logical mindset. I like to do procedural work that has a step by step framework. I really enjoy having time to work on a key part of a project and testing/troubleshooting problems. Although i find this quite a technical role, sometimes I feel that you have a certain amount of artistic freedom. i.e how a rig can be made- yet it is still constrained to some functionality. Usually, when there is a malfunction, it is due to a logical reason.
As well as individual technical work I understand the importance of team work and good communication within a production pipeline. Having had experience with rigging within a pipeline I have had to maintain a good level of communication to both modelers and animators. This quality reflects my ability to work successfully with in a team- a crucial part of our industry.
Finally I would say that one of my most central assets is my enthusiasm for my subject as a whole. This has pushed my interest in this subject in terms of acquiring knowledge. I tend to look at projects in its entirety and do my best to try and find as many logical solutions as I can.
Companies
Here are a list of ideal job-roles from ideal studios in London.
Framestore
"
Framestore NY is looking for Riggers to create and refine realistic skeletal, muscle, facial and mechanical rigs on a wide variety of CG creatures and/or mechanical props for high-end VFX projects.
Responsibilities
• Create fully scripted rigs and refine them according to animation and lighting needs
• Prototype, implement and refine puppet (skeleton), body (muscles), facial, cloth (deformer based) or mechanical rigs
• Troubleshoot and fix rig issues, collect artistic feedback and fine tune rig behaviour
• Become an expert user of the extensive rigging toolset
• Contribute to rig modules or libraries to add functionality
• Create simple tools to help animation workflow and rig interaction
• Work within the pipeline and rigging standards
• Meet delivery deadlines under production constraints
Skills & Experience
• A passion for creating believable CG characters and the attention to detail
• Advanced Maya Mel or Python, GUI scripting, ability to follow strict coding standards
• Experience with fully scripted modular/functional rigging
• Analytical and artistic skills, creativity, visual problem solving
• Team work, communication, and time management
• Experience with medium or large libraries, shared code base, cvs or equiv
• Ability to write technical documentation and present your work (wiki, screen cap, etc)
• Basic knowledge of anatomy for bipeds and quadrupeds, skeletal and muscle
• Good understanding of constraints and deformers, how they work and their limitations
Desirable Knowledge
• Maya muscle custom rigs, pose-space deformations
• Skin jiggle, sliding and wrinkle techniques
• Facial anatomy, realistic eye and mouth rigs, Facs breakdown
• Life drawing or organic modelling esp. human anatomy
• Basic knowledge of dynamics (maya hair, comet, nCloth, nParticle, etc)
• Strong math background, esp matrix math, geometry algorithms
• C or C++ programming Maya plugins
• Experience with body Mocap: rig hookups, offset rigs, retargetting, etc.
"
Double Negative
RIGGER
- Job Title: Rigger
- Department: 3D
- Location: London
- Closing Date: N/A
- Reports To: Head of Rigging
- Direct Reports: N/A
Key Purpose of the Job
The Rigger is responsible for creating animation rigs for characters, creatures, props and vehicles. The role may require the implementation of proprietary tools to aid in the creation of a rig. The Rigger must collaborate with the CG Lead and the Animation Lead to develop the most suitable rigging solutions.
Needs To Do
- Work closely with the CG Lead to ensure that the rig is pipeline friendly for texturing, lighting and rendering
- Work with the Animation Lead/Supervisor to develop an intuitive and responsive rig for each character
- Work with The Rigging Lead to meet project schedules and manage their time to the successful delivery of rigs within those schedules
- Communicate with the Modelling Department to ensure that models are suitable for rigging
- Communicate with the R&D Department where necessary to effectively help develop the tools and technology to aid in delivering high-quality rigs
Needs To Know
- Previous CG experience, ideally within feature films
- Ability to perform visual and analytical problem solving in 3-dimensional space, including the ability to accurately interpret 3D layouts and analyse 3D form
- Ability to problem solve and predict potential problems with assigned tasks
- A thorough knowledge of Maya and Mel
Needs To Be
- Ability to work well in a team environment
- Highly motivated
- Adaptable
- Accepting of change
Measures of Performance
- Must achieve set quota per week/month
- Make sure team meet weekly/monthly quota
MPC
| Rigging TD | |
| Location: | Vancouver |
| Job Code: | R001 |
| # of openings: | 1 |
| Description | |
Duties and Responsibilities:
| |
From the three above cases we can deduce the common qualities that are required by a rigger.
Personal Skills:
Enthusiastic, Team member, Troubleshooter, helpful, friendly, have overall general knowledge on other topics related to the pipeline.
Technical Skills
Thorough Character rigging, Anatomy, Deformations, Scripting/Programming.
Matching up
Amongst all of the qualities I would say that I do have some of them whist others need to be built upon and developed.
for example I do think that I have some experience with creature rigging, and also some experience in working along side a production pipeline.
I have also taught myself some of the aspects of scripting that can go hand in hand with this field.
Improvements
In order to suit myself better to this job role I thin that I would need to become more familiar with anatomy in general. Since this is the basis of Rigging I feel that I would need to do further study in this area to understand kinematics and body structures.
Other than this, I do feel I am on the right track and need to continue gaining experience with a variety of rigs. By doing this I would be gaining much necessary experience, facing and solving problems that would accumulate my knowledge of rigging. I also need to continue teaching myself scripting to a sufficient level and try to see the relevant applications within rigging.
Finally, and probably most difficult of all is to find relevant work experience. This should be done by starting off as a very junior role (i.e a runner) and eventually develop a network of contacts who can advise me the best way of achieving my goal. Ideally it would also be nice to network with current riggers to try and learn as much as one can about the area as needed. Using this method I would be able to show relevant work experience as well as have project experience to back up my rigging knowledge. I think that if I work on these aspects and continue to develop them, then I would surely be able to achieve a job as a rigger by the time I graduate.
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