3D Game Character & Prop Rigging Artist

Rickshaw Studios; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 800,000 - 1,200,000; Full time

Job summary

Rickshaw Studios is seeking a 3D Character & Prop Rigging Artist to create and maintain high-quality rigs for characters, creatures, weapons, and gameplay assets in our upcoming action-adventure title.

You will collaborate with artists, designers, and engineers to deliver rigs that are robust, intuitive, and production-ready for Unreal Engine, including Control Rig and IK workflows. 2+ years of rigging experience and strong Maya skills are required.

Qualifications

• 2+ years of professional experience in 3D rigging for games or related production.
• Strong experience with Autodesk Maya.
• Strong understanding of character rigging, skinning, and deformation.
• Experience rigging both characters and non-character assets.
• Familiar with Unreal Engine and real-time animation workflows.

Responsibilities

• Create production-ready rigs for humanoid characters, creatures, bosses, and other animated assets.
• Build clean skeletons, joint hierarchies, controls, and deformation systems.
• Maintain IK/FK systems, constraints, and animator-friendly controls.
• Perform skinning and weight painting with high quality.
• Prepare rigs for real-time gameplay in Unreal Engine and ensure performance.

Skills

Maya

Rigging

Unreal Engine

Scripting: Python/MEL

Tools

Python scripting

MEL scripting

Blender

Job description

We are looking for a 3D Character & Prop Rigging Artist to join our team and help bring the characters, creatures, weapons, props, and gameplay elements of our upcoming 3D action-adventure hack-and-slash game to life.

You will be responsible for creating and maintaining high-quality rigs for both characters and non-character assets – essentially, anything in the game that needs to move, bend, articulate, or be animated.

You will work closely with our Character Artists, Animators, Environment Artists, Designers, and Engineers to create rigs that are intuitive to use, visually robust, and ready for production in Unreal Engine.

Responsibilities

Character & Creature Rigging

• Create production-ready rigs for humanoid characters, creatures, bosses, and other animated characters.
• Build clean and efficient skeletons, joint hierarchies, controls, and deformation systems.
• Create and maintain IK/FK systems, constraints, space switching, and animator-friendly controls.
• Perform high-quality skinning and weight painting.
• Create corrective deformation solutions for challenging poses and extreme movements.
• Support characters across gameplay, combat, locomotion, hit reactions, dodges, knockdowns, deaths, and cinematics.
• Create or support facial rigs and facial deformation setups where required.
• Work closely with animators to ensure rigs are intuitive, stable, and flexible.

Weapons, Props & Gameplay Elements

• Rig weapons, props, mechanical objects, and interactive gameplay assets.
• Create rigs for assets with multiple moving or articulated parts.
• Set up hierarchies, pivots, constraints, controls, and animation systems as required.
• Collaborate with designers and engineers to ensure animated objects behave correctly in gameplay.

Unreal Engine Pipeline

• Prepare and integrate rigs, skeletons, and animated assets into Unreal Engine.
• Work with Unreal's animation and rigging tools, including Control Rig, IK Rig, IK Retargeting, Animation Blueprints, Physics Assets, and Sequencer where appropriate.
• Troubleshoot issues involving skeletons, skinning, deformation, animation export/import, retargeting, and runtime behavior.
• Ensure rigs and animated assets are suitable for real-time gameplay and meet performance requirements.
• Work with the team to identify and resolve issues between the 3D package and Unreal Engine.

Requirements

• 2+ years of professional experience in 3D rigging for games, or related production.
• Strong experience with Autodesk Maya.
• Strong understanding of character rigging, skinning, and deformation.
• Experience rigging both characters and non-character assets.
• Good understanding of:
• Skeleton and joint hierarchy, IK/FK, Constraints, Skinning and weight painting, Deformation, Animation export/import
• Experience working with Unreal Engine.
• Understanding of real-time game animation workflows.
• Ability to create clean, animator-friendly rigs.
• Strong problem-solving and troubleshooting skills.
• Good communication and collaboration skills.
• Strong attention to detail.

Good to Have

• Experience working on an Unreal Engine game.
• Experience working on action, combat, hack-and-slash, RPG, or third-person games.
• Experience rigging creatures and non-humanoid characters.
• Experience with complex weapon rigs.
• Experience rigging mechanical objects and gameplay elements.Experience with Unreal Control Rig.
• Experience with facial rigging.
• Experience with physics-driven assets and secondary motion.
• Experience with cloth, hair, chains, ropes, or other simulated elements.
• Experience with Python or MEL scripting for rigging tools and automation.
• Familiarity with Blender, Houdini, ZBrush, or other 3D packages.
• Experience optimizing rigs and animation systems for real-time performance.

Please include a portfolio or demo reel link inside your resume showing your rigging work.