Character Technical Director

A Character Technical Director (TD), also referred to as a Creature TD (ILM, Weta) or Technical Animator (Imageworks), is a type of technical director in film and video games who is specifically concerned with characters, creatures, and mechanical objects.

The role of a Character TD may vary from studio to studio in its scope, but it is almost always centered around the discipline of rigging: the process of engineering anatomical or mechanical kinematic systems that move and deform digital models, and the design of higher-level interfaces used by computer graphics animators to control the movements of those models.

The role may additionally encompass disciplines such as modeling & simulation.

The software used by Character TDs may vary widely from studio to studio, from off-the shelf tools to proprietary in-house systems. Autodesk Maya is used predominantly throughout the VFX and Animation industry, with Softimage also having a large user-base. In the gaming industry, Autodesk Maya and Autodesk 3ds Max have been the dominant presence.

Many studios pair off-the-shelf software with their own in-house software and plug-ins for rigging and simulation. For instance, Industrial Light & Magic does much of their sim setup and simulation in a proprietary package called Zeno, and Weta Digital uses an in-house simulation system they call Tissue.

Notable newcomers to the field of rigging include the independent platform Fabric Engine, being used by Double Negative, MPC and Hybride.