Meta / Facebook Work Examples

Meta / Facebook Avatars

Technical Artist on the Facebook/Meta Avatar sticker team. Collaborated with cross-functional engineering and art teams to create and manage artist pipelines for the 2.5D and 3D Avatar Sticker character products.

Key Achievements

• Built and managed the artist/vendor pipeline between Maya, Photoshop, Blender, Illustrator, Perforce, Shotgrid, Spark, and the proprietary Facebook render ecosystem
• Created several new product feature pipelines, including profile pics, cover photos, text posts, and customizable looks like jewelry, tattoos, and DEI user options
• Programmed Photoshop menu plugins and templates to automate repetitive designer tasks for thousands of assets
• Coded an automated QA tool that generated test images and compositions for creative review
• Built and automated the customizable emoji reaction product matching to avatar features
• Migrated Maya tools from generic GUI boxes to customized, dynamic, polished Python QT windows

Link to the original 2D Facebook Avatar Stickers →

The success and popularity of our product led the company to focus more resources on building a 3D version that we adapted our pipeline to use.

3D Avatar Evolution

• Prototyped and engineered shader and lighting solutions to increase mobile render performance
• Designed and created interactive AR/VR experiences with Facebook's proprietary real-time tool, Spark
• Wrote a Maya toolshelf of creation and posing tools for 3D artists with PyQT
• Programmed a Blender pipeline to round trip convert customized glb assets into poseable fbx Maya scenes
• Worked cross-functionally with London-based engineers to increase performance
• Prototyped and collaborated to create the first working animated sticker product and build a functional, performant 3D animated sticker pipeline

Meta updates 3D avatars for Instagram, Facebook, Messenger →

Meta / Facebook Unity Real-time AR/VR Work

Technical Artist on the Portal TV (codename "Catalina") AR team, designing and creating AR/VR prototypes with Unity, Spark, C#, and Javascript.

Project Highlights

• Prototyped and assisted in the creation of online multiplayer AR Lip Sync experience
• Created playable prototypes in Unity, using an Xbox Kinect to simulate the potential AR capabilities
• Conceptualized and developed Unity UI/UX designs
• Developed full navigable menu systems, an interactable dressing room with constrained props and the logic and flow of the lip sync experience
• Directed vendors in the creation of final assets, adapted heavy assets to make them performant, and wrote HLSL shaders to replace textures
• Worked with game developers and engineers to code Unity C# game scripts, setup scenes, and wire and animate assets
• Managed a cross-functional effort with the Facebook Audio team to integrate their beat detection software
• Created, animated, and programmed the cameras, assets, and effects in the final game

Unity Training Projects

Leading up to my assignment, I refreshed my Unity skills and knowledge by creating a game, UI examples, and an animated 3D scene in my free time.