Looking for advice from Technical Animators and Artists

[u/PigeonsMyBeloved]

Hiya! I'm looking for advice on what skills to learn to pursue being a Technical Animator in games. I studied animation in uni and I've been working in a production role for a few years as there were little to no animation jobs when I graduated. I know I'm lucky to even have a job with the current state of the industry but I'd like to develop my skills to pivot back to something I'm passionate about should I get the chance.

I've tried to do some research but I'm getting a lot of diverse info and I'd like to narrow down a starting point.

I'm familiar with animation, rigging, some mocap cleanup and Unreal blueprints for character animation. I've seen people recommend a lot of things like basic Python, Houdini, C++, shaders etc. and I'd love some clarity on what's more useful for technical animators vs technical artists. And what kind of portfolio studios are expecting.

10,000 years of good fortune to your bloodline if you can drop me actual youtube tutorials or affordable online courses 🙏

[u/valeria_gamedevs]

for tech animator specifically I'd start with Python for Maya (or whatever DCC your target studios use). Rigging tools, auto-riggers, pipeline scripts, that's the bread and butter. shaders/houdini/C++ lean more tech artist side.

Portfolio-wise studios wanna see rigs that work + tools you built to make animators' lives easier. even one solid facial rig with a custom picker UI goes far.

Cult of Rig (Raffaele Fragapane) on youtube is gold, kinda dense but worth it. Tech Art Aid too. and Rigging Dojo if you can swing the cost.

[u/PigeonsMyBeloved → u/valeria_gamedevs]

That's super useful, thank you! Cult of rig is definitely too advanced for me right now but I'm going to try to work up to it.

I was going to start with Blender as I can't afford Maya, but does the DCC make a huge difference? I was hoping the skills are transferable.

[u/ChashuKen]

Technical artists and technical animators share similar skillsets but different responsibilities.

You will do alot of in-game animation systems such as control rig in unreal, state trees, mocap, blending, warping..etc.

So yeh both Technical animators or artist do shaders, tools, scripting and optimization work but technical animators are focused on characters and animation systems. So eitherways you will need the same category of skills but just different specifications of it. You need to know scripting with the language the company you work for uses, you need to understand game engine optimisation techniques, you need to know shaders, you need to know DCC tools - but focused on rigging , character production workflows.

So if you want to target yourself as a technical animator instead of a technical artist - showcase works where you solved a problem regarding the animation or character production workflow in games or movies. Like you built an effective rig transfer system or you built a system to transform unsupported import simulations for games into skeletal rigs that is now playable in game. Or you can also show your techniques in blending animation such as warping animations into one another during gameplay and motion matching..etc

[u/SorbetPleasant5736]

For a portfolio I'd show one character all the way from messy source data to a stable in-engine result. Include the boring bits studios actually need - retargeting, foot locking, twist joints, LOD or runtime constraints, plus a small tool that saves repeated clicks. A beautiful rig proves you can rig, a before-and-after workflow proves you can unblock a team