Character Rigging & Tools Artist

Impleo; United States; Hybrid; USD 100,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

6.5 weeks vacation

Employee stock options plan

Flexible schedule and work location (0

Healthcare & benefits plan

Parental leave top-up for 16 weeks

Job summary

Torn Banner Studios in Toronto, Canada, seeks an experienced Character Rigging & Tools Artist to join the team, collaborating with animators and the art department to bring characters to life.

You will build high-quality rigs, develop rigging pipelines, and support production from modeling through deployment in Unreal Engine, with a focus on performance and animation quality.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of professional experience in technical animation or character rigging.
• Advanced scripting skills in Python and MEL for tool development.
• Experience with Unreal Engine integration and animation pipelines.
• Strong understanding of deformation, skinning, and rigging systems.
• Excellent problem-solving and cross-functional collaboration.

Responsibilities

• Create high-quality character rigs with realistic and production-ready deformations.
• Skin and integrate character meshes into the game engine, ensuring performance and fidelity.
• Collaborate with animators, character artists, designers, and tech artists to meet quality and deadlines.
• Develop, maintain, and improve rigging systems, workflows, and tools.
• Troubleshoot rigging, skinning, and animation integration issues in production.
• Optimize rigs for in-game performance while preserving animation quality.
• Create and maintain technical docs for rigging tools and workflows.
• Contribute to establishing rigging standards and pipeline improvements.

Skills

Character Rigging

MotionBuilder

Autodesk Maya

Python scripting

MEL scripting

Unreal Engine

Animation pipelines

Problem solving

Cross-team collaboration

Tools

Unreal Engine

Maya

MotionBuilder

Job description

The Company

Torn Banner Studios is a Toronto, Canada-based independent game development studio founded in 2010. We first made our mark with Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, a multi-million copy selling title that redefined melee combat in gaming. Since then, we’ve continued to grow and innovate, releasing Chivalry 2 and, most recently, No More Room in Hell 2, currently in Early Access. Today, our team of around 100 developers is dedicated to creating unique, challenging, and fun gaming experiences.

The Role

We are seeking an experienced and highly motivated Character Rigging/DCC Tools Artist at Torn Banner Studios. As a Character Rigging & Tools Artist you will be responsible for a wide range of tasks and should expect a variety of issues and challenges to tackle across various areas of the game. You’ll be working directly with studio leadership, our animators and the character art department to bring our characters to life. The ideal candidate would have a keen interest in participating in the tools and rigging pipeline as a whole and has a strong sense of quality.

You will play a key role in bringing our characters to life by creating high-quality rigs and deformation systems that support expressive, believable animation. You will collaborate closely with studio leadership, animators, technical artists, and the character art team to develop robust character rigs and continuously improve our rigging pipeline and workflows.

Responsibilities

• Create high-quality character rigs with realistic and production-ready human and creature deformations.
• Skin and integrate character meshes into the game engine, ensuring optimal performance and visual fidelity.
• Collaborate closely with animators, character artists, designers, and technical artists to deliver assets that meet project quality standards and production deadlines.
• Develop, maintain, and improve rigging systems, workflows, and pipeline tools to enhance team efficiency.
• Troubleshoot and resolve rigging, skinning, and animation integration issues throughout production.
• Optimize rigs for in-game performance while preserving animation quality.
• Create and maintain clear technical documentation for rigging tools, workflows, and best practices.
• Contribute to establishing and maintaining rigging standards and pipeline improvements across the project.

Requirements

• 6+ years of professional experience as a Technical Animator or Character Rigging Artist in the video game industry, preferably on next-generation titles.
• Strong expertise in Autodesk MotionBuilder and Autodesk Maya, with extensive experience building production-ready character rigs and supporting animation workflows.
• Advanced scripting skills in Python and MEL for developing, maintaining, and improving animation and rigging tools in both Maya and Motionbuilder.
• Experience providing technical DCC support for animation and rigging tools, troubleshooting production issues, and improving artist workflows.
• Solid experience working with Unreal Engine, including character integration and animation pipelines.
• Proven experience designing, building, and maintaining scalable character rigging pipelines and production workflows.
• Strong understanding of character deformation, skinning, and animation systems.
• Excellent problem-solving skills with the ability to identify technical challenges and develop practical, efficient solutions.
• Self-motivated, curious, and proactive, with a passion for research, continuous learning, and exploring new techniques and technologies.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively across multidisciplinary teams.

Bonus

• Familiarity with Unreal Engine rigging pipelines for Control Rig & Simulation
• Familiarity with Maya MGear plugin

Benefits & Perks

• 6.5 weeks paid vacation
• Eligible for Employee Stock Options Plan
• Flexible schedule and work location, with your choice of remote, hybrid, or on-site.
• Healthcare & benefits plan, for you and your family
• 100% parental leave top-up for 16 weeks, for Canadian employees.

To see our team, our office and what we do as a company visit We are Torn Banner Studios.

Torn Banner Studios welcomes and encourages applications from people with disabilities. Accommodations are available on request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process.

Compensation

• The pay range for this role is between 100,000$ to 130,000 per year. The range for this role represents candidates across a wide range of skills and experience for the position. Increased salaries may be achievable for those who have achieved mastery and deep industry knowledge over time. Your specific offer will rely on your unique experience and alignment to our team's needs for the position.

Transparency on use of AI and position vacancy

• Our recruitment process does not use artificial intelligence to automatically screen, assess, or select applicants. All decisions on progressing, rejecting, and offering candidates are made by human reviewers.
• One AI–enabled tool that may be used during the interview process is that of interview recording, transcription, and summarizing. Again, this would not make decisions, but simply make reviewing the notes easier. We will always ask for the candidates approval before using such a tool.
• In compliance with Ontario regulations, the advertised posting is for a currently vacant position.