Senior 3D Animator

As a Senior 3D Animator, you will be responsible for crafting and maintaining top quality character animation for a ‘AAA’ gaming experience, breathing life and personality into the characters within our games. The successful candidate is comfortable with both realistic and stylized animation with the ability to deliver compelling performances on-screen. A confirmed understanding of human body mechanics and locomotion, working with motion capture (body and facial) to achieve realism in the movements and mannerisms, crafting and maintaining animation controllers which bring our characters to life.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

• Process and retarget animation bring together files to game assets (characters) using industry standard workflows.
• Apply motion capture data as a base to compose realistic human motion for gameplay and cinematics.
• Animate props using rig and constraint systems.
• Animate facial rigs by hand, polishing ‘solved’ facial data or using facial clips layered over mocap data.
• Work within a game engine and pipeline to ensure all completed assets are in a build ready format.
• Maintain a high level of quality working within design and technical constraints while balancing performance issues.
• Collaborate with Software Engineers with implementation, troubleshooting, and debugging of animation systems.
• Participate in team and department meetings and collaborate with team to drive constant improvement and evolution of animation production methods, tools, and techniques.
• Respond to direction with an open-mind and willingness to refine character animation with direct input from the Creative Director, Art Director, Animation Leads, and Art Lead to ensure the highest quality and applicability of the game.
• Meet project deadlines set by Producer and Animation Lead and work within pre-defined aesthetic goals.
• Build and maintain good relationships with team members. ● Ensure company art practices are followed.

Skills, Knowledge and Experience

• Typically, a minimum of 4 to 6+ years of proven experience in animation.
• Expert knowledge and comprehension of the mechanics and movement of the human body
• Strong animation and technical skills working with Maya, Motion Builder, and Unity
• Knowledgeable in the technical aspects of rigging and skinning characters for animation
• Ability to understand and build flow & state machines
• Shotgrid, Jira, Confluence
• Facial Animation Experience
• Strong proficiency with Unity
• Technical animation knowledge a bonus (i.e. tool creation and understanding)

Location/Relocation Requirements

• Position based in Nova Scotia but open remote work
• Nova Scotia offers access to nature, cultural experiences, and a balanced lifestyle