Frequently asked questions.
How can we book you for our project?
Get in touch via greg@heroig.com! We’ll reply as soon as possible, and we’ll most likely jump on a video call to chat about your rigging needs, and how Heroig can help!
How long will it take to rig…?
This is always something we will need to assess. It’s best to include as much information about your project and assets in your initial email.
“How long will it take you to rig a polar bear?“
Could be more descriptive:
“How long will it take to create a body and facial rig for a polar bear, which is seen up close across multiple shots of a 30s commercial? This to be a photoreal character, which will interact with talent, and special attention will be paid to the inside of the mouth.”
Where is Heroig based?
We are a UK based company.
Can you attend our dailies sessions?
Due to how Heroig operates, we are unable to join daily video conferencing sessions. We’re always available to jump on a video call to discuss the rigs we provide, any feedback you have or if you just need to screen share to show us something!
What if we book you and then project requirements change?
We are very happy to make reasonable amends to a project quote. We can always talk through new requirements and can almost always make things work within the original quote. We’ve rigged for years and know how a brief can change and evolve. We always try and add more functionality to a rig than it may require for a particular storyboarded action.
Are you freelance riggers?
We work as a limited company, and as such are not freelancers for hire on a person-day basis. We quote a fixed price for a body of work.
Do you join our studio apps?
Unfortunately, due to the service we offer, we are unable to join apps such as FTrack, Shotgun, Teams, Slack, Discord etc..
As we offer ongoing support for all of the rigs we work on this would mean being signed in to multiple sites and it becomes difficult to manage. Therefore we ask that most feedback goes through a Trello board that we share with the whole team, and if anything is a bit harder to explain we can jump on a video call and screen share instead!
Do you do CFX simulations?
At Heroig we focus solely on Asset Build, rather than Shot Execution. This is because the two follow very different, and often overlapping timelines. That being said, we often incorporate skeletal & muscular geometries in our rigs for Studios to then run simulations on themselves in either Houdini or Ziva. We don’t have licenses for these, so we cannot open these kinds of files and sanity-check them for you.
Will you rig assets on our server?
You would upload your model versions to us, we will rig them using our scripted Heroig pipeline, and then upload rig versions for you to access. Due to our extensive code-base, we are unable to rig via remote desktop.
Can you remote desktop and use our machines?
All rigging work takes place on our servers. If you provide us with VPN or FTP access, we can place files on your server to save you needing to download them from Google Drive each time, but we cannot initiate any in-software-publishes unfortunately.
Can you write us animation and other pipeline tools?
Yes! We will consult with you during the project to ensure that any additional tools you need are provided. This will all be included in the fixed price, and these tools will be yours to keep forever.
Which software do you provide rigs for?
All rigging is carried out in Maya, and we can provide compatible rigs for any version including latest. We also cater for realtime engines, and can provide FBX rigs for Unreal/Unity. We do not rig in Houdini, C4D, 3DSMax, Blender.