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)