Advanced Billboard 3D Puppet Rig

About the project

I’m building a character that must stay two dimensional from any angle so that snapshots present keyframes, so the whole rig will rely on a network of billboard imposters rather than heavy geometry. What I need from you is an advanced 3D puppet that can load different art passes—realistic, cartoonish, or any other style I feed it—without having to rebuild the rig each time. The core tasks are: • Design a flexible bone and control structure that drives multiple billboard planes while still supporting full-body motion, facial expressions and secondary animation. • Author any custom shaders or scripts required so the imposters always face camera correctly and swap textures smoothly. • Package everything so that I can drop the file into Blender, Maya, 3ds Max or another DCC of choice and it just works; I’m deliberately keeping the platform open. Acceptance criteria are straightforward: the rig must import without errors, expose clear animation controls, hold up under 360° camera moves and allow me to hot-swap texture sheets to change styles on the fly. If you’ve built sprite-based fighters, mobile characters or billboard forests, you already know the tricks I’m after. Show me examples of comparable rigs or technical reels and let’s get this lightweight character ready for production.

Skills required