Rigging Talk

Hey all,

Rigging is a pretty specialized niche in the already niche industries of '3d animation' including games, film, commercial, visualization, etc. I'm curious to everyone's perspective on how many riggers are actually out there.

I've been out of university for a couple years now and there were only a few people who really picked rigging up and ran with it then. Of course people come to rigging through necessity and from other disciplines but now that it's actually taught at a university, I would assume most would learn the basics that way. Plus not everyone who learns this stuff actually gets a job and enters the industry. Cult of Rig seems to be the most exciting development in this space the last couple years and Raf's youTube videos seem to normally average around 1000 views.

From my perspective at a, I guess, 'mid sized' movie studio there really aren't a ton of riggers floating around. We have around three character riggers for the studio at the moment split between two departments. We aren't in the throws of production at the moment but even then we maybe triple in number. Hiring character rigging positions seems to be tough with it taking ~6 months to find people. Plus there is always the chance they just aren't up to snuff.

I feel like my own perspective is really limited so I'd like to hear your thoughts. I know this forum hasn't had much activity recently but I sure wish it did. Maybe there is another forum similar to this one with more activity?

How many riggers are on your team? What is your perspective on the scale of the rigging world? Are studios looking for riggers?

I don't have much in the way of numerical data, and it's a big big world out there - but as a freelancer who's dipped into a few different studios, I think that it seems easy to overestimate the size of the industry. People that have found a place in the rigging industry seem to all know each other. I also haven't had a hard time finding studios that need experienced riggers as soon as possible. Along those same lines, I've also met several rigging leads who don't have a lot of extra time to revamp their rigging setup, and I know I don't search out quite as many rigging videos as I used to. Cult of Rig is also pretty high level stuff, so I doubt the view count would be a good representation of the entire industry.