Andrea Arghinenti

Work History

• 

  Rigging Supervisor

  Sony Pictures Imageworks

  May 2020 - May 2021

  Vancouver

  Facial Performance Capture Development.
• 

  Rigging Supervisor

  Method Studios

  January 2020 - March 2020

  Vancouver
• 

  Lead Technical Rigger

  Digital Domain

  March 2019 - October 2019

  Vancouver, Canada

  Rigging Tools Maintenance - Performance Capture Face Solving
• 

  Rigging Supervisor

  Image Engine

  September 2017 - January 2019

  Vancouver, Canada Area

  Rigging&CFX; Department and Show Supervisor.
  
  'Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald', from director David Yates.
  'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom', from director J.A. Bayona.
  'Pokémon Detective Pikachu', from director Rob Letterman.
  
  and more.
• 

  Senior Facial Rigging Engineer

  Sony Pictures Imageworks

  January 2017 - August 2017

  Vancouver, Canada Area

  Facial Performance Capture Research & Development.
• 

  Senior Rigger

  Image Engine

  June 2016 - January 2017

  Vancouver, Canada Area

  'Logan', from director James Mangold.
  On-set FACS direction (ICT, Los Angeles), of actor Hugh Jackman and actress Dafne Keen.
  Lead Role: Hero digi-double Face Rigging, Face System Architecture Design and Development, 3D scans ingestion, Implementation of a custom PSD set-up for Bodies based on scattered data interpolation.
  
  'Power Rangers', from director Dean Israelite.
  On-set FACS direction (Animatrik, Vancouver) of actor Bryan Cranston.
  Lead Role: Hero Face Rigging & Motion Capture Data Integration (Di4d).
• 

  Creature FX Technical Director

  Framestore

  November 2015 - April 2016

  London, United Kingdom

  'Mowgli', from director Andy Serkis.
  Inception and implementation of a new breed of simulation face rigs designed to add secondary dynamic motion to an input blendshape solution. Face Muscle set-up and skin simulation for 12 hero creatures.
• 

  Senior Rigger

  Framestore

  November 2014 - October 2015

  London, United Kingdom

  'Mowgli', from director Andy Serkis.
  R&D in the field of facial performance capture. Inception and implementation of a custom solution for a live solving and retargeting of actor performances to creature animation rigs. Face rigging. On-set FACS direction of actor Rohan Chand.
  
  'The Legend of Tarzan', from director David Yates.
  On-set FACS direction of actor Alexander Skarsgård.
  
  'Knights of the Roundtable: King Arthur', from director Guy Ritchie.
  On-set FACS direction of actor Jude Law. Face solving.
  
  'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them', from director David Yates.
  Real-time Maya solving of actor facial performances by taking as input a point cloud generated by Cara 3D Vicon systems. The custom written solver is based on scattered data interpolation (SDI) techniques and allows an artistic direction thanks to a layered architecture where for each 'pass' it is possible to combine multiple FACS poses and focus on specific areas of the face.
• 

  Senior Creature TD

  Double Negative

  November 2013 - October 2014

  London, United Kingdom

  Face Rigging R&D for both photo real and cartoon faces.
  In depth face anatomy study, design of a PSD solution,
  definition of a workflow to ingest 3D scans, prototyped
  a hybrid PSD + Free form deformation approach,
  definition of marker set standards for performance capture
  pipeline and photogrammetry sessions.
  
  
  'Avengers: Age of Ultron', from director Joss Whedon.
  Hero Digi Double Face Rigging & 3D Scans ingestion.
  
  'Terminator: Genisys', from director Alan Taylor.
  Hero Digi Double Face Rigging & 3D Scans ingestion.
  
  'Godzilla', from director Gareth Edwards.
  Creature body CFX and Face Rigging. Creature Cloth set-up.
  
  'Jupiter Ascending', from directors Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski.
  Creature Body muscle set-up, Face Rigging, Prop set-up.
  Camera Tools writing and PyQt Ui implementation.
• 

  Principal Character TD

  Guerrilla Games

  April 2013 - October 2013

  Amsterdam, Netherlands

  
  KILLZONE: Shadow Fall - AAA PS4.
  
  2014 Outstanding Real-Time Visuals in a Video Game VES nomination.
  
  Definition of new procedural rigging solutions.
  Supervision final delivery of characters in game.
  Experience with outsourcing partners by reviewing
  the enveloping process and setting up guidelines.
  
• 

  Creature Technical Director

  Framestore

  January 2012 - December 2012

  London, United Kingdom

  
  'Gravity', from director Alfonso Cuaron.
  
  2014 Visual Effects Oscar Winner,
  2014 Best Visual Effects BAFTA Award,
  2014 Outstanding Visual Effects VES Awards
  
  In this role I have been responsible for finding the deformation look of the Nasa Suit torso digital costumes, then implemented and maintained cloth simulation rigs. I have then worked on specific hero-shots with torso cloth simulation and overall costume finalling work.
  
  
  '47 Ronin', from director Carl Rinsch.
  Simulation look/dev work for Maya hair secondary animation FX for the witch villain character.
  
• 

  Senior Technical Artist

  Guerrilla Games

  January 2010 - December 2011

  Amsterdam, Netherlands

  
  KILLZONE3 - AAA PS3/Sony exclusive Award Winning title.
  -> Game (Intro, SP&MP)/Cutscenes/TV Teaser Trailer.
  
  Talk SIGGRAPH 2011 - Vancouver - August 11, 2011
  'Animation Workflow in KILLZONE3: A fast facial retargeting system for game characters'.
  
  
  Worked closely with Animation team in order to
  re-design and re-write the character animation pipeline.
  
  .R&D for Body and Face motion capture and retargeting pipeline; FACS breakdown;
  .Setting up guidelines for facial Motion Capture by defining marker positions and number;
  .Creation of a fully scripted rigging system to build bipeds, quadrupeds and faces;
  .Creation of Animation tools to streamline the workflow;
  .Closely worked with Modelers for optimal topologies;
  .Rigging and Skinning of all characters in game/cutscenes/trailers;
  .Supervision of multiplayer characters skinning and assembling;
  .Rigging of Vehicles and in-game related work.
  
• 

  Technical Artist

  Guerrilla Games

  November 2007 - December 2009

  Amsterdam, Netherlands

  
  KILLZONE2 - AAA PS3/Sony exclusive Award Winning title.
  -> Game (SP&MP)/Cutscenes/Bullet Commercial Trailer.
  
  .Rigging and skinning of all characters in game;
  .Creation of skinning tools in order to improve the weighting process;
  .Creation of a phonemes/expression animation layer for the facial rig;
  .Creation of a fully automated pipeline to create thousands of lip-sync animated clips;
  .Rigging of custom vehicles and technical artist work dealing with in-game specific issues;
  

• Character TD

  Advantage Advertising & Publicity

  September 2007 - October 2007

  Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain

  
  Computer Graphics Consulting, Character Animation.
  

• Rigger TD

  263 Films S.p.A

  September 2006 - December 2006

  Milan Area, Italy

  
  'Dear Anne, The Gift of Hope', from director Dario Picciau.
  Creation of a scripted functional rig to handle offset animation and motion capture data for both face and body.
  

• Character TD

  NoReal, Virtuality & New Media Applications

  August 2006 - September 2006

  Turin Area, Italy

  
  'Leonetta Civetta', RAI-TV production.
  Character set-up with Maya and Motion Builder. The virtual character is being driven by a real-actor performing in real-time.
  

• 3D Content Creator

  Virtual Reality and Multi Media Park S.p.a

  September 2004 - July 2006

  Turin Area, Italy

  
  Teacher of CGI, Character TD, 3D Content Creation for Off-line and Real-Time engines; data integration (Maya to Motion Builder), Low-poly modelling, uv mapping and texturing.
  
  Academic Paper: 'Archeology of Multimedia'.
  Vincenzo Lombardo, Andrea Valle, Fabrizio Nunnari, Francesco Giordana, Andrea Arghinenti, Best Art Contribution ACM MultiMedia 2006.
  
  DramaTour project - https://dramatour.di.unito.it
  An interactive animated character as virtual guide for museums.
  Technical supervision, rigging, data integration, rendering.
  

• 3D Content Creator

  Laboratorio Multimediale Guido Quazza, Facoltà di Scienze de

  November 2003 - August 2004

  Turin Area, Italy

  
  Virtual Electronic Poem Project - https://edu.vrmmp.it/vep/
  Technical supervision, Character Animation for Real-time applications.