OpenSource Realtime AI Avatar / Digital Human Developer

Location: Remote

Type: Contract / Freelance

Project: Humanoid AI character with real-time conversation, lip sync, facial animation, and natural hand/body gestures

Company Description

TINK TEAM LTD. specializes in Game Development, IT Service Consultancy, and Software Development. With a solutions-driven approach, the company delivers innovative and cutting-edge projects that meet the diverse needs of clients. TINK TEAM LTD. is committed to providing high-quality services and fostering excellence in technology-driven sectors. The team thrives on creativity and technical expertise to drive transformative results for businesses.

About the role

We are looking for a developer or technical artist-engineer hybrid to help us build an open-source-only conversational avatar system.

The goal is to create an on-screen humanoid character that users can talk to in real time. The character should respond naturally with:

• voice output,
• lip sync,
• facial expressions,
• head movement,
• and believable hand / upper-body gestures.

This is not a vendor-integration role. We are not looking for proprietary closed SaaS avatar platforms.

We want a custom pipeline built primarily on open-source components.

What we want to build

A real-time AI character system where:

• the user speaks or types,
• the system generates a response,
• the character speaks back,
• and the avatar performs synchronized facial animation and natural gestures.

Core requirements

You should be comfortable designing and implementing a pipeline that may include:

• speech-to-text
• LLM / conversational backend integration
• text-to-speech
• lip sync / viseme driving
• facial expression animation
• gesture / upper-body motion generation
• runtime avatar integration in Unity or a similar real-time engine

Open-source solutions only.

We are specifically looking for someone who can evaluate, adapt, combine, and productionize open-source tools and research projects rather than relying on closed commercial avatar products.

Relevant experience may include work with:

• open-source lip sync systems
• open-source talking head / facial animation frameworks
• open-source speech-driven body or gesture animation
• Unity avatar animation pipelines
• blendshapes, visemes, ARKit-style facial rigs, Mixamo-compatible rigs, or similar runtime avatar systems

Ideal profile

You may be a strong fit if you have experience in one or more of the following:

• real-time avatar systems
• digital humans
• conversational agents with visual embodiment
• facial animation pipelines
• procedural or ML-driven gesture generation
• Unity character integration
• open-source AI tooling and model deployment

Deliverables

Depending on your profile, the work may include:

• evaluating the best open-source stack for the project
• proposing a practical architecture for MVP
• integrating avatar runtime in Unity
• implementing lip sync and facial expression playback
• adding natural gesture / hand acting logic
• connecting the avatar to conversational AI
• documenting the full pipeline for future iteration

Nice to have

• experience with WebSocket / realtime streaming systems
• experience with local or self-hosted inference
• experience optimizing avatar systems for latency and performance
• experience working with stylized or semi-realistic humanoid characters

To apply

Please send:

• a short introduction
• relevant portfolio / GitHub / demos
• examples of avatar, lip sync, facial animation, or gesture work
• notes on which open-source tools you would consider for this type of system