Description
We are looking for a Senior Animator to join our team responsible for research and engineering. As a Senior Animator, you will have a deep understanding of content processing pipelines, from creating starting resources to final rendering, and excel in balancing visual quality and performance.
You will design high-quality game animations covering locomotion, traversal, combat, reactions, interactions, and character performance. You will establish animation quality standards, movement principles, and production norms while providing guidance, feedback, and artistic direction as the practice develops.
You will work closely with the artistic and design teams to determine poses, timing, weight distribution, impact, responsiveness, and readability of the game. You will support playable demos and representative extracts by taking charge of animation from the exploration phase through refined implementation in the engine.
You will collaborate with technical animation and engineering teams on animation execution systems, finite state machines, blends, procedural solutions, and evolving workflows. You will contribute to defining the project's movement language and animation style, ensuring character movements and interactions align with the overall visual orientation, character personality, and game objectives.
You will support animation evaluations from internal and external production and ensure that works consistently meet established technical and creative quality standards.
Requirements:
- Demonstrated experience in AAA video game development and at least 8 years of professional experience in animation, contributing to commercialized works for console or computer.
- Solid demo reel showcasing high-quality game animations, locomotion, combat, reactions, and character performance.
- Experience with current tools like Maya, Blender, ZBrush, Substance 3D, Marvelous Designer, or comparable software.
- Experience working with Unreal, Unity, Frostbite, or another modern proprietary engine.
- Experience leading animators, directing animation reviews, and defining artistic direction; ideally managing small internal or external animation teams.
- Expert-level understanding of fundamental animation principles, including posing, timing, spacing, weight distribution, impact, and movement clarity.
- Extensive experience with animation implementation in a real-time game engine, including finite state machines, blending, motion matching, inverse kinematics, and comparable execution engines.
- Strong understanding of how animation affects game speed, readability, camera angle, player commands, and feedback.
- Experience adapting animations to different game types, including action-oriented experiences, character types, camera perspectives, and playability needs.