Grant Laker

Work History

• 

  Head of Rigging

  Framestore

  January 2022 - Present

  Melbourne, Australia
• 

  Senior Creature/Character TD

  Method Studios

  June 2021 - December 2021

  Melbourne, Australia

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  
• 

  Senior Character TD

  Iloura

  July 2016 - January 2018

  

  

  

  
• 

  Rigging and Asset Creation Lead (VFX)

  Laika

  October 2011 - May 2016

  Portland, OR

  "ParaNorman" (2012)
  "The Boxtrolls" (2014)
  "Kubo And The Two Strings" (2016)

  

  
• 

  Senior Character Technical Director

  Laika

  December 2010 - October 2011

  "ParaNorman" (2012)
• 

  Creature Technical Director

  Double Negative

  October 2009 - November 2010

  "Paul" (2011) - Facial Rigging Lead
  "John Carter" (2012) - Facial Rigging Lead

  

  
• 

  Senior Character TD - Digital Design Group

  Laika

  January 2009 - July 2009
• 

  Character Setup TD

  Laika

  October 2006 - December 2008

  I joined LAIKA when the studio was in pre production for its first animated feature film. I quickly became the rigging departments primary tools developer, providing efficient and effective solutions using custom MEL, Python and C++ code.
  During my time in this department, I developed a suite of advanced rigging and deformation tools, most notable being a surface based skinning deformer which was used in all of our rigs after its initial release. Other highly utilized tools I developed include a surface area based wrinkle deformer, a topology relaxation

• Lead TD

  theLabSydney

  January 2005 - October 2006

  I lead a team of Technical Directors at a relatively large animation studio. We work mainly on medium to large visual effects and animation projects. I'm primarily responsible for many of the highly technical and artistic considerations on such projects. Streamlining and automating some of the more hands on tasks involved in a visual effects and animation pipeline is also a large part of my job. Typical tasks would include, creation and supervision of unique and standardised character animation rigs. Aswel as creation of automatic setup procedures for su
• 

  Freelance Character Setup and FX artist

  Nitrogen Studios

  February 2006 - September 2006

  I have been called upon to supply several character animation rigs for a number of different Film and TV projects.
  I have also supplied elements for a number of CG effects sequences as well as performing some basic compositing.
  I have always worked remotely for Nitrogen, which has proven to always run very smoothly despite the time zone and geographic distances.

  

• Lead Cloth TD

  BFC (Happily N'Ever After)

  September 2005 - December 2005

  Supervise and deliver all dynamic cloth simulation animation for a 3D animated feature film (Happily N'Ever After). Creation of pipeline, tools and procedures to streamline the simulation process.

• Lead Rigging Supervisor

  BFC

  March 2005 - September 2005

  Responsible for design and creation of unique and standardised character animation rigs for a feature film production. Creation of auto rigging tools and supervising character animation rig creation for 100+ characters, created in 5 studios in 3 countries (Australia, Germany and Canada).

• 3D Visual Effects Artist

  Omnilab Group

  January 2001 - December 2004

  Worked on over 20 commercial television projects. Performed every task involved in a medium visual effects and animation project. Everything from modeling, texturing, rigging to animation, aswel as dynaminc simulation, lighting and rendering.