Nino Thephavong - Senior Character Technical Director

Specialties & Skills


  • Maya, XSI, 3ds Max
  • ZBrush, Photoshop
  • Rigging, Facial Rigging
  • Organic & Hard Surface Poly Modeling, ZBrush Sculpting

  • Lighting & Rendering, Mental Ray & VRay
  • Cloth, Fur, Hair
  • MEL Scripting, MaxScripting

Employment History

3D Technical Animator
Behaviour Interactive
Permanent (March 2010 to Current)


Behaviour Interactive is Canada’s largest independent game developer, employing over 350 talented people in Montreal, Quebec. The company has developed over 120 titles across every game platform, including its highly-stylized third person shooter WET and its comic mischief adventure, Naughty Bear. The studio has worked with the industry’s top publishers and licensors, including 505 Games, Activision Blizzard, Atari, Bethesda, Disney, EA, Konami, Microsoft, Nickelodeon, Paramount, Sony, THQ, and Warner.

  • Development on Wet 2: Double Feature
    Character Rigging, Facial Rigging, Prop Rigging, Scripting &  Animation

Senior Character Technical Director
Plastic Wax Animations
Contract (June 2008 to May 2009)


Plastic Wax Animation is a leading digital design, 3D art, animation and production studio specialising in the creation of premium digital entertainment, 3D art and animation for the global video games industry. Nino was employed at Plastic Wax contractually on a project by project basis, primarily as a Rigger, and Cloth & Hair Technician. Although his role did extend out to Modeling and Scripting when needed. He was instrumental in designing the animation pipeline. He was fortunate enough to work on such prestigious brand franchises such as Star Wars, Warhammer 40K and Transformers.

  • Cinematic Pitch for LucasArts for the Sequel to Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
    Facial Rigging & Morphs, Cloth Setups & Sims

  • Cinematic for THQ Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine – Shown at E3 2009
    Rigging, Facial Rigging & Morphs, Cloth Setup & Sims

  • Cinematic & TVC for Atari Ghostbusters – Simultaneous Worldwide release
    Rigging, Facial Rigging & Morphs

  • Cinematic for Atari The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena – Cancelled Project
    Rigging, Facial Rigging & Morphs

  • Cinematic for Activision Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
    Rigging, Facial Rigging, Weapons Rigging, Transformation Animation

  • Cinematic for FuzzyEyes Edge of Twilight MMO – First shown at the Tokyo Game Show
    Rigging, Cloth Setups & Sims, Hair Setup, Modeling Props

  • Cinematic for Disney Turok 2 – AAA game is yet Unannounced
    Rigging, Facial Rigging & Morphs, Cloth Setup & Sims, Hair Setup & Sims, Muscle Setups, Scripting

  • Cinematic for THQ Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – Awarded AEAF 2008 Award for Best Cinematics
    Rigging, Facial Rigging & Morphs

Lighting Setup Specialist / Character Technical Artist
Mighty Nice
Freelance (November 2008 to March 2009)


Mighty Nice is a new Sydney-based animation studio co-founded by Nexus Productions in London. Nino was employed primarily as Lighter and Rigger, his responbilities included but was not limited to, lighting and shading sets and scenes, problem solve technical issues in rendering.

  • TVC & Print Ads for Rabobank Australia RaboPlus RaboMan Campaign
    Lighting, Shading, Rendering, Particle Effects

  • TVC for SBS Station 2009 Indents
    Lighting, Shading, Rendering, Rigging, Scripting

  • TVC for Coca Cola Avatar – Work done for Nexus. Shown at Super Bowl XLIII
    Rigging, Facial Rigging & Morphs, Modeling

Character Technical Artist
Catastrophic FX
Freelance (July 2007)


  • TVC for Beijing 2008 Olympic Games
    Rigging

Character Technical Artist
ECI Group
Freelance (June 2007)


  • Animations for Red Cliffs Gaming Machine
    Rigging, Facial Rigging & Morphs

Character Technical Artist / Lighting Setup Specialist
monkeylab
Freelance (December 2006 to April 2007)


monkeylab was a design driven animation studio base in Newtown, Sydney. Nino was brought on board as a rigger to work on Coca Cola's TVC for their Endless Summer marketing campaign. His roles and duties included: rigging characters with body and facial controls using a custom stretchy-squashy rig. Populate, texture, and light various scenes. Rig, animate, and populate various plants in the environment. Later on, he coded various scripts to expediate production.

  • TVC for Coca Cola Endless Summer Campaign
    Rigging, Facial Rigging & Morphs, Modeling, Lighting, Shading, Texturing, Scripting

Character Technical Artist / Generalist
ProMotion Studios
Contract / Permanent (June 2006 to February 2007)


ProMotion Studios is a 3D art house specialising in the design, illustration and animation of characters. Nino was initially employed as Rigger and Generalist to create a custom muscle rig and facial setup for two major characters for the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar. The characters were for the opening and closing ceremony events displayed on stadiumsize wide displays.

  • TVC for Beconase Becky Anti-Histamine Spray Campaign
    Rigging, Facial Rigging & Morphs, Hair Setups & Sims, Particle Effects

  • Special Event Doha 2006 Asian Games Opening Ceremony
    Rigging, Facial Rigging & Morphs, Hair Setups & Sims, Muscle Setups, Particle Effects

  • Special Event Doha 2006 Asian Games Closing Ceremony
    Rigging, Facial Rigging & Morphs, Hair Setups & Sims, Muscle Setups

Education & Training


Bachelor of Science (majoring in Computing)
University of Western Sydney, Macarthur
Graduated 2001

3D Animator / Artist Course
MAD Academy
Graduated 2006

Download Nino's PDF Resume
Nino's LinkedIn Public Profile