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AI Character Rigging Automation Developer

Maya Patel

Full-time · Job · Los_Angeles

About the role

Character rigging — building the skeletal control system that animators use to pose and animate a 3D character — is one of the most technically skilled and time-consuming tasks in production animation. A production-quality rig for a humanoid character can take a senior rigger 3-4 weeks to build. A creature rig with complex secondary motion can take months. Studios working on feature-length projects rig dozens of characters. Automating rigging is considered one of the hardest open problems in production CG because it requires understanding anatomy, animation principles, and the artistic intention behind a specific character design simultaneously. We've made significant progress on humanoid auto-rigging. The frontier is non-humanoid characters: quadrupeds, creatures with unusual proportions, and characters with mechanical or fantastical anatomy that doesn't map to standard skeletal templates. You'll lead the rigging automation ML system: training models that predict joint placement and skeleton topology from character geometry, generating control hierarchies that animators can work with intuitively, and implementing the secondary motion systems (jiggle, stretch, squash) that make characters feel alive. Your work will be tested by professional animators who'll tell you when the rig feels natural versus when it fights them.

Responsibilities

  • Design ML models predicting optimal joint placement and skeleton topology from 3D character geometry
  • Build control hierarchy generation for humanoid and non-humanoid character types
  • Implement secondary motion systems: jiggle, stretch, squash, and follow-through automation
  • Develop rig quality evaluation framework with professional animator assessment
  • Handle anatomically unusual characters: quadrupeds, creatures, and mechanically-jointed designs
  • Optimize rigging pipeline to reduce character setup time from weeks to hours

Requirements

  • 6+ years in ML engineering with 3D graphics, character animation, or computer vision experience
  • Deep understanding of character rigging principles and animator workflow requirements
  • Strong Python and PyTorch skills with 3D geometry processing experience
  • Familiarity with production animation pipelines and CG software (Maya, Blender, or similar)
  • Portfolio demonstrating technical work in character animation or procedural 3D

Benefits

  • Fully remote with occasional LA studio visits for animator review sessions
  • Top-of-market compensation
  • Comprehensive health benefits
  • $5,000 annual equipment and conference budget
  • Credit on productions using your rigging system

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Categories

AI & Machine Learning Engineers Automation & AI Workflows

Skills

python pytorch computer vision docker gcp

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Job Type

Full-time

Level

Senior

Language

English

Salary Range

$160k – $200k / year

AI Expertise

AI & Machine Learning Engineers Automation & AI Workflows

Skills

python pytorch computer vision docker gcp statistics

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