Rigger Lisbon
At Studio Ellipsis, we don’t just ship projects: we build worlds. We’re a small, elite team of creators united by one belief: that imagination, executed with precision, can reshape what games and transmedia experiences mean to people.
We’re looking for a Rigger, a technically minded animator who thrives at the intersection of anatomy, motion, and pipeline. You’ll design and maintain the rigging pipelines that power traditional and modular creatures, building flexible systems capable of adapting to variations in form, proportion, and morphology.
This is a role for someone who loves structure as much as motion, who understands that clean architecture is what makes the impossible believable.
Key Responsibilities
● Design and implement modular rig systems that support procedural generation and variable anatomy (limbs, appendages, proportions, etc.).
● Build and maintain production-ready rigs for humanoid, creature, and hybrid forms, ensuring clean deformation and animator-friendly control setups.
● Develop and maintain rigging tools, scripts, and templates (Python/MEL) to automate repetitive tasks and standardize workflows.
● Collaborate with Technical Art, Animation, and Engineering to ensure seamless Unreal Engine 5 integration, including Control Rig and runtime procedural systems.
● Perform QA passes on internal and outsourced assets—verifying hierarchy, naming conventions, deformation quality, and export compliance.
● Partner with Animation to define standards for deformation, physics-driven motion, and rig-to-engine fidelity.
● Maintain documentation, pipelines, and naming standards for all rigging systems.
● Support real-time debugging, optimization, and integration of complex rigs across
multiple disciplines.
You Are
● A technical artist with 4–6+ years of professional experience in rigging for games, VFX, or animation.
● Fluent in Maya rigging, skinning, and constraint workflows, with a strong understanding of modular hierarchies.
● Proficient in Python or MEL scripting for automation, tool development, and batch processing.
● Experienced integrating rigs into Unreal Engine 5, including Control Rig, retargeting, and deformation workflows.
● Comfortable working with procedural or system-driven creatures—embracing variation and adaptive rig logic.
● Detail-oriented, organized, and methodical—you value efficiency, clarity, and performance.
● A clear communicator who bridges technical and artistic disciplines seamlessly.
● Curious and inventive—you see rigging not as a task, but as an evolving system of
motion.
Why Studio Ellipsis
We’re a small, focused team driven by a belief that discipline and imagination aren’t opposites: they’re partners.
If you take pride in elegant structure, thrive on technical challenges, and want to help define how living systems move within imaginary worlds, this is where you belong.