Hello everyone! Welcome to our AMA with members of the Character Tech Team from the LA and Frankfurt studios. The Character Tech Team is the link between purely code-focused programming and creative art. They're currently working on the character tech pipeline, providing the artists with the tools they need to achieve their visual goals. So, without further ado, I would like to give our guests the chance to introduce themselves: Andreas Rohr | @HeartOfTheTiger-CIG Hey guys, my name is Andreas Rohr and I'm a principal character tech artist/technical animator/tools programmer based in the Frankfurt office. I'm part of the Tech Animation Team, which is split between our Wilmslow, Derby, and Frankfurt studios. Besides working at CIG, I'm a proud veteran Star Citizen backer who hasn't missed a single Wingman's Hangar, Around the Verse, and Inside Star Citizen episode since our humble beginnings. My main focus over the past years has been developing our in-house facial rigging pipeline/toolset and improving our DNA character customization system. I also push our next-gen cloth and hair simulation tech and generally strive to ensure all our animation and deformation systems are both easy and efficient to work with and reach near-filmic quality levels when the big day comes. Chris Van Compernolle | @CVC_CIG Hi, my name is Christopher Van Compernolle, but call me CVC for short. I am an embedded technical artist for the Character Art Team. My specialties include rigging, skinning, and coding tools. This includes modular armor, hair creation pipelines, and character optimizations. So if you have any Python tools questions, let's chat! James Ku | @jku_cig Hi, my name is James Ku and I'm a principal character artist at CIG. I work in the LA studio with our great group of character artists on the Character Tech Team. My job is to create characters, R&D new tech and software for the character creation pipeline, and set a high quality bar for the look of our characters. In the last few years, my primary task has been to focus on Squadron 42, specifically the faces of the main characters. I've been working on things like the skin, eyes, and hair of these characters to try to make them more realistic and appealing. Forrest Stephan | @Forrest_CIG Greetings citizens! Forrest Stephan here reporting for duty as a principal technical artist at CIG. I am a pipeline supervisor that helps our talented artists bring you the best darn looking pixels possible. I am heavily embedded in the Character Team and support the needs of departments scattered across the globe with character-related requests. I have a long investment in development and a huge love for the project as I have been working on Star Citizen since the beginning, starting way back on the original crowdfunding campaign. So whether you want to go down memory lane or chat about the latest and greatest in our character art pipelines, I’m here for you! The team will be joining this thread at 5pm UTC / 10am PST (30 minutes after this thread opens). Got a question? Great! Drop it in the comments below! POSTING GUIDELINES Questions should be relevant to the topic of this AMA Only one question per post Do not make use of special formatting in an attempt to draw more attention, and therefore more votes, to your questions. For example, BOLD, H1, etc. No "when" questions. All information we have about the intended release of any feature is represented on the Public Roadmap Posts violating these guidelines or the subjects of the broadcast may be deleted, as may inline replies Have fun