Meet Muhammad Bin Tahir Mir | Animation Technical Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Muhammad Bin Tahir Mir and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Muhammad Bin Tahir, why did you pursue a creative career?
I’ve always been fascinated by story and animation. My siblings and I would watch ‘The Lion King’ literally several times a day as children. These viewings were followed by us enacting scenes from the film, drawing the many characters, reading the illustrated story book as a family—all that left a mark, to say the least. Drawing became a constant part of my life very early on. Drawing and watching tons of animation. In high-school, I would make live-action shorts with friends. We’d get together to write stories, plan the shots, record, edit, the whole deal! And I’ve also always been big on video-games. I remember fondly the many hours I’ve spent with friends and siblings trading and battling Pokemon. Looking back now, I see that I’ve always associated story and art and animation with the community and the relationships I’ve built through it. Art, especially video games, are extremely collaborative endeavors and I love that. So yeah, I say all this now but I never saw art as a viable career trajectory growing up. It was always there in one form or another but only as a hobby. I’d never met a Pakistani artist or animator and that was a major reason why this mental barrier existed for me. I realized it was possible only when Mano Animation Studios started building a space for traditional animation in Pakistan. I interned with them during my 3rd year of undergrad and the rest is history. It was the only place I wanted to work at after graduating and I’m glad I did. I must note, however, that a lot of class and gender privilege allowed me to pursue this “flamboyant” day job of making cartoons over the more “practical” and “stable” opportunities available to me.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I started my career as a Traditional Animator at Mano Animation, working on a hand-drawn feature. I learnt the fundamentals of drawing and animation there and met some of the most dedicated artists I know. This focus on identifying the fundamental principles of a discipline and then learning them through focused practice is what’s stayed with me since my time at Mano. I sought to combine art with my technical background in Computer Science and that led me to pursue a graduate degree at Carnegie Mellon. I brought the approach of focusing on fundamentals with me to Carnegie Mellon as I began to traverse the uncharted territories of Technical Animation. I started off with rigging and soon realized most content online presented the discipline as a series of techniques. I did the work of de-escalating these techniques to the fundamental principles they were alluding to and built a strong foundation for myself to continue growing as a Rigger. I landed my first job in the industry as a Technical Animator at Oxide Games, working on ‘Ara: History Untold’.
At Oxide, I was responsible for building the character pipeline at the studio: understanding requirements coming in from Art Direction for character deformation, designing and setting standards for character rigs, building run-time assets and finally tools to automate the processes for building these assets. I helped establish a giant chunk of the character pipeline at the studio, something I’m immensely proud of.
In 2019, I joined Naughty Dog as an Animation Technical Director. Here, I help build the pipeline and tools required for Animators to, well.. animate. My role requires I understand the current asset production pipeline at the studio and build better infrastructure to remove any bottlenecks. The studio was still finishing up ‘The Last of Us: Part I’ around the time I joined. ‘The Last of Us’ is a franchise that’s left a giant mark on me. It’s the franchise that got me engaging with video games as more than just a consumer back in 2013. I feel extremely lucky to have contributed to the remake. Felt like everything came back full-circle for me, haha!

My entire career’s just honestly been several fun, challenging problems one after the other. I’ve been lucky to have always worked alongside driven, motivated teams to create experiences and stories I’m proud to have contributed to. As long as I’m learning, as long as I’m working on things at least a tiny, small bit outside my comfort zone, I’m a happy man.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Okay, so LA has a lot of great Halal food and I have a list of restaurants all my friends who visit must eat at. Simpang Asia, Mega Grille, HiHo, just to name a few. I love the German Expressionism exhibit at LACMA’s and the animation exhibits at The Academy Museum, so those. Little Tokyo’s always a vibe and there’s this trail called Black Star Canyon Falls in Orange County that’s been on my radar for a while. And then there’s always a concert or performance happening in LA.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Firstly, my family. I’d be nowhere without their love and unconditional support. My friends, who believed in me throughout. Mano Animation Studios for the many amazing peer mentors who helped me grow immensely as an artist during my time there and also introduced me to Richard Williams’ ‘The Animator’s Survival Kit’. All my teachers but especially Dr. Suleman Shahid and Dave Culyba for their continued support and guidance. And last but not least, my mentor and friend Chandana Ekanayake for his continued commitment to helping folks navigate this industry.

We thrive when we support and uplift each other, when we move forward together.

Website: https://mbintahir.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_muhammadmir/