Sr. Character/ Blendshape Artist

Recognized as a global leader in interactive and digital entertainment, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) is responsible for the PlayStation® brand and family of products and services. PlayStation has delivered innovation to the market since the launch of the original PlayStation in Japan in 1994.

We are currently looking for a Blendshape Artist to come aboard and work in conjunction with our riggers, the Animation Supervisor and the Character Supervisor to bring highly-realistic faces to life for both cinematic and in-game sequences. The successful candidate will be working with all of the triple A studios like Naughty Dog, Santa Monica Studio (God of War Franchise), Guerrilla and many more!

• The Blendshape Artist will be responsible for bringing highly-realistic faces to life for both cinematic and in-game sequences
• This person will make the final tweaks to the topology edge-flow and determine the final positioning and refinement to key assets such as eyes, teeth, tongue and eyelashes
• When the model face is finalized the artist will sculpt a full array of naturalistic FACs and corrective blendshapes for expressive photorealistic humans.
• Sculpting a series of high-resolution wrinkle maps to add a final level of polish and nuance to the expressions.
• Work closely with the external clients, internal artists and outsourcing partners to keep quality and style consistent across all characters
• Create and lead others in the creation of photo-realistic humans, with particular attention to advanced facial modeling and expression modeling
• Lead and mentor both internal character teams and outsourcing partners to reach aesthetic and technical goals
• Create documentation, communicate requirements, and provide feedback to internal artists and outsourcing partners
• Constantly and proactively seek to improve the production processes, tools and pipelines for character creation, rigging and animation and rendering

• Solid grasp of realistic human anatomy with special emphasis on the head/face (examples required)
• Strong understanding of Maya and basic understanding/use of blend shapes
• Experience with facial rigging of any kind (examples required)
• Experienced with sculpting in Zbrush, Mudbox etc. (examples required)
• This person should be comfortable making facial expressions in the mirror and ideally capable of isolating difference expressions/actions in the face
• At least 5 years of professional character art experience in high-end 3D games and/or films with at least 1 published title or movie
• This person should have an extreme attention to detail and an eye for minute differences/movements in face
• This person should be able to grasp technical concepts at least from a broad perspective and follow technical workflows while pushing artistic limit
• This person should be able to self-manage and keep track of their own progress and troubleshoot technical issues with Maya
• This person should be able to brainstorm ideas that keep in mind the overall goals of the project
• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent
• Experience with facial blend shape workflows on realistic humans
• Expert understanding of human anatomy
• Versed in Facial Action Coding System
• Experience with Blendshape Combination System plug-in
• Experience with Perfroce
• Strong understanding of Maya and basic understanding/use of blend shapes
• Experience with facial rigging of any kind (examples required)
• Experienced with sculpting in Zbrush, Mudbox etc. (examples required)