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A Modular Approach to Rigging in Houdini | Rob Garcia | Gnomon HIVE 2026

Rob Garcia, a technical artist at Light Labs, details the development of a "Rig Factory"—a modular, procedural rigging system designed for a high-volume production pipeline in Houdini. This talk explores how Garcia utilizes Houdini's APEX framework and custom Digital Assets (HDAs) to standardize rigs across diverse character types, ranging from birds to quadrupeds. By leveraging packed folder structures and a tiered capture process, the system allows for the rapid generation of high-quality animation rigs that can be assembled in just a few hours. Rob Garcia is a technical artist at Light Labs with over 15 years of experience specializing in rigging for animation. Throughout his career, he has worked at several premier Los Angeles studios, including Blur Studio and Framestore. Currently, he contributes to the development of a live-streaming platform focused on animated gifs and real-time user effects. 00:00 - Introduction and Speaker Background 00:55 - The "Rig Factory" Concept 02:00 - Build Roadmap and Pipeline Overview 04:49 - Packed Folders: The Backbone of the Workflow 07:54 - Modular HDA Configurations and Mirroring 09:14 - Incremental Guide Placement and Refinement 12:00 - Tiered Capture and Weighting Process 13:58 - Navigating the APEX Learning Curve 17:18 - Post-Rig Passes: Delta Mush and Grooms 24:19 - Q&A: Rigging in Houdini vs. Maya #Houdini #Rigging #AnimationPipeline #TechnicalArtist #ApexRigging #VFX #LightLabs #CharacterRigging

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