NATHAN
LINDIG.
Character Technical Artist
Artist instincts. Engineer thinking.
Fluent across the full CG pipeline.
About
I'm a Character Technical Artist wired to see the world through the eyes of an artist, but trained to think through problems like an engineer. I go beyond simply identifying how to help artists achieve a desired result, seeking to make the production process more efficient, effective, and enjoyable for everyone involved.
I have a breadth of experience across the CG production pipeline, specializing in modeling, texturing, rigging, pipeline development, and tooling for VR, social platforms, and real-time character systems. Providing me a unique ability to collaborate across disciplines and departments, anticipate downstream production impacts of decisions, and design solutions with that full context in mind.
I don't settle for the tools in front of me. I'm always looking for new techniques and better approaches, not just to grow my own capabilities, but to expand what's possible for the teams I serve. That same instinct extends to the people I work with. I can sit with an engineer and explain how an artist sees and approaches a problem. I can sit with an artist and help them understand why constraints exist and find ways to achieve their vision within them. Translation between disciplines, in both directions, is something I do naturally, and it's one of the things I value most about the work.
Skills
Technical Specialties
Software & Tools
Collaboration & Leadership
Domain Knowledge
Projects & Contributions
Body Types & Clothing Update
Contribution
Co-developed the deformation transfer framework and designed a system of 11 proxy meshes encoding how clothing fits across body volumes. Led bug triage during rollout across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Meta Horizon.
Vendor Tooling — External Pipeline Toolset
Contribution
Owned this end-to-end: scoped requirements, led a small TA team through development, shipped to ~15–30 external artists, wrote all documentation, and drove post-ship updates. The kind of project that requires knowing the pipeline deeply enough to explain it to someone who’s never seen it.
Style 2 Avatar — Clothing & Accessories
Contribution
Ran the prototyping workstream that defined the execution strategy and technical requirements for clothing production, built the initial skin weight transfer system, directed ~7 artists through a month of manual skin weight production, and led mix and match QA across hundreds of asset combinations.
Deformation Transfer Framework
Contribution
Co-developed the four-phase framework architecture (correspondence mapping, operations on correspondence data, transfer, and post-transfer refinement) and led the skin weight transfer component. The system handles the geometrically hard cases — armpits, crotches, complex layering — that naive proximity methods consistently fail on.
Horizon Worlds Full-Body Avatar Legs
Contribution
Led the critical launch-blocking clothing readiness effort, auditing and updating 100+ assets across all five clothing categories, conducting deformation QA across animations and LODs, and redesigning the skirt skin weight transfer pipeline from a manual process into a batch-processable procedural system.
Avatar Hair System Overhaul
Contribution
Defined the new texture map format, developed the Substance Painter tooling that made it possible for artists to author it correctly, and identified where the approach broke down for coily and curly hair — then contributed to the solution for those cases too.
Meta Avatar System — Initial Launch
Contribution
Built three Maya GUI tools that improved artist efficiency and helped de-risk launch blocking efforts for the Horizon Worlds launch. Personally sculpted 40+ facial feature shape updates as part of an overhaul of the facial feature catalog for the Instagram rollout.
Baba Yaga
Contribution
Lead environment artist on the project's most complex interactive environment. Responsible for a majority of the prop and environment modeling and texturing work, in-engine setup of ~80% of all environments, all prop rigs, and several tooling efforts.
Body Types & Clothing Update
Contribution
Co-developed the deformation transfer framework, leveraging advanced mesh correspondence techniques, and designed a system of 11 proxy meshes that together encoded how clothing fits across body volumes. Led bug triage during rollout across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Meta Horizon.
Vendor Tooling — External Pipeline Toolset
Contribution
Owned this end-to-end: scoped requirements, led a small TA team through development, shipped to ~15–30 external artists, wrote all documentation, and drove post-ship updates. The kind of project that requires knowing the pipeline deeply enough to explain it to someone who’s never seen it.
Style 2 Avatar — Clothing & Accessories
Contribution
Ran the prototyping workstream that defined the execution strategy and technical requirements for clothing production, built the initial skin weight transfer system, directed ~7 artists through a month of manual skin weight production, and led mix and match QA across hundreds of asset combinations.
Deformation Transfer Framework
Contribution
Co-developed the four-phase framework architecture (correspondence mapping, operations on correspondence data, transfer, and post-transfer refinement) and led the skin weight transfer component. The system handles the geometrically hard cases — armpits, crotches, complex layering — that naive proximity methods consistently fail on.
Horizon Worlds Full-Body Avatar Legs
Contribution
Led the critical launch-blocking clothing readiness effort, auditing and updating 100+ assets across all five clothing categories, conducting deformation QA across animations and LODs, and redesigning the skirt skin weight transfer pipeline from a manual process into a batch-processable procedural system.
Avatar Hair System Overhaul
Contribution
Defined the new texture map format, developed the Substance Painter tooling that made it possible for artists to author it correctly, and identified where the approach broke down for coily and curly hair — then contributed to the solution for those cases too.
Meta Avatar System — Initial Launch
Contribution
Built three Maya GUI tools that improved artist efficiency and helped de-risk launch blocking efforts for the Horizon Worlds launch. Personally sculpted 40+ facial feature shape updates as part of an overhaul of the facial feature catalog for the Instagram rollout.
Baba Yaga
Contribution
Lead environment artist on the project's most complex interactive environment. Responsible for a majority of the prop and environment modeling and texturing work, in-engine setup of ~80% of all environments, all prop rigs, and several tooling efforts.
Career Timeline
Character Technical Artist
Led technical art across three major avatar platform launches — driving deformation systems, clothing pipeline development, vendor tooling, and cross-functional production strategy for avatar clothing used by millions across VR and social platforms.
3D Artist (Contingent)
Contributed to the foundational avatar system as a generalist technical artist — developing production tooling, sculpting facial features, and bridging art and engineering across hair shading and clothing system launches.
CG Artist, VR Production
Served as the primary artist at the studio during final delivery of Baba Yaga and early pre-production on a new VR project, contributing across modeling, shading, and technical direction.
CG Generalist / Rigging Intern
Contributed as a generalist across rigging, environment art, in-engine integration, shader development, and tooling for the studio's VR animated experience Baba Yaga.
Instructor of Record
Developed and taught undergraduate CG production courses — including the university's first online Maya course — training students across the full production pipeline.
Earlier Work
The following reels represent foundational work from earlier in my career, prior to my time at Meta.
Environment Artist Demo Reel
Environment Artist Demo Reel
Rigging Demo Reel
Rigging Demo Reel
Modeling Demo Reel
Modeling Demo Reel
Contact
Let's build
something.
Currently open to new opportunities.
Send an Emailor email directly at nathanlindig@gmail.com