Senior Facial Character TD (CONTRACT)

This position is for temporary engagement through our staffing partner, Yoh Enterprise Solutions.

Insomniac Games is looking for a new Senior Facial Character TD. In this role, the Senior Facial Character TD is responsible for authoring effective FACS shapes from scratch for human and non-human characters; collaborates in developing rigs to support high-fidelity animated facial performances; participates in facial research & development efforts. Expected to have an expert understanding of FACS and facial anatomy and cutting-edge approaches to facial technology.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following:

• Expert level understanding of FACS and facial anatomy for cutting edge application to facial animation technology
• Expert proficiency in sculpting FACS shapes using deformers and/or sculpting tools for human and non-human characters
• Expert understanding of facial skeletal and muscle anatomy;
• Collaborates with animation, character art, and engineering teams to produce high quality face rigs
• Authors rigging systems to augment or support blendshape-based facial rigs
• Authors high quality photorealistic facial rigs based on FACS using blendshapes
• Collaborates with Character Art, Animation, and Engineering teams to deliver the highest quality assets with animator/mocap friendly interfaces that run smoothly in engine 
• Contributes to automated tools and workflows for runtime optimization
• Contributes to tools for ingesting 3rd party facial rigs
• Processes and cleans 3D or 4D scan data from FACS sessions
• Keeps up with state-of-the-art approaches to facial rigging for photorealistic characters in film and games
• Has strong understanding of facial shape transfer techniques and ability to implement shape transfer pipelines
• Contributes to tools for authoring and editing facial rigs (python/pyqt/pyside)
• May be asked to direct actors through FACS during facial acquisitions
• May ingest and integrate facial assets from 3rd parties
• May be expected to maintain relationships and provide feedback to external vendors
• Other duties may be assigned undefined

Supervisory Responsibilities: This role has no supervisory duties but may mentor other TDs with regard to facial mechanics, rigging, sculpting, or solving techniques.

Qualifications: To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. 

Computer Skills: Expert-level experience with Maya. Experience sculpting details with ZBrush, Mudbox, or comparable; processing scan data with Wrap 3D/$D or comparable; and with deformation transfer workflows. Preferred experience working with faces for realtime applications (Unity, Unreal or other).

Other Skills: Strong understanding of state-of-the-art approaches to authoring photorealistic faces for film or games; of FACS, how it relates to facial anatomy, and ability to identify primary action units on sight; General understanding of current approaches to facial performance capture & solving; of modern approaches to scanning including 4D scanning. Passion for achieving highest quality detail through iteration and refinement. Ability to think outside the box to achieve more realistic solutions or optimize runtime performance. Passion for collaborating and sharing knowledge across teams. Bachelors degree or equivalent.