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Animation Director

Job Description

When you’re an Animation Director at Ubi MTL, you define how characters, environments, and objects will move within a world that’s stylistically believable and consistent.

You shape a game’s overall animation vision and rally your team of animators behind it. You give them the guidance and context they need to grasp the overall style you’re trying to achieve, and then allow them the freedom to experiment and iterate.

While your animators build a world from the ground up, you keep an eye on form and function from a player's perspective, ensuring that the look and feel of movement reach their intentions: to support gameplay, convey the narrative, create a connection, and make for an immersive, engaging, seamless experience.

What you’ll do

• Work closely with your fellow core team members to develop the overall game + unify your visions.
  
• Brainstorm and research to define the animation style.
  
• Connect riggers and animators to the animation vision by providing them with visual benchmarks, references, and training.
  
• Partner with technical directors to establish pipelines and workflows + select tools to achieve aesthetic quality and technical functionality.
  
• Cast actors + guide them during mocap sessions.
  
• Test the game (very often) to get a sense of the animations’ feedback and a feel for the game in general.
  
• Sync up with collaborative teams (especially game design, art, and narrative) to ensure a cohesive game.
  
• Review and validate integrated work + provide mentorship and constructive feedback to develop a polished, harmonious, quality visual animation style.
  
• Participate in recruitment to build and grow your team + foster their professional development.

Qualifications

What you bring

• Around 7 years of animation-related experience (on a first-person shooter game, a huge plus) + 3 years of leadership
• Deep-rooted knowledge of animation software like Motion Builder, 3DS Max, and Maya
• An understanding of game engines (e.g. Unity or Unreal) and technical constraints
• A thorough grasp of interdependencies + consideration for how your choices impact other departments
• A degree in 3D Animation, Computer Graphics, or related training
• Extensive video game culture + a keen eye for detail to take animation to the next level
• Flexibility to adapt to and overcome any hurdles and curveballs that come your way
• The ability to make a vision accessible and ensure that it is well understood by all
• Solid communication, presentation, mentorship, and interpersonal skills
• A collaborative, creative, and innovative spirit

What to send our way

• Your CV, highlighting your experience, education, skills, and any games shipped

About us
At Ubisoft Montreal, a preeminent developer of video games located in Montreal’s dynamic Mile-End neighbourhood since 1997, we offer a work environment unique in the industry for allowing you to build and cultivate games that are part of critically acclaimed, iconic AAA franchises of international repute.

When you join Ubi Montreal, you enter a community of passionate, extraordinary developers connected by their need to innovate, to be creative and to work with the latest technology. You’ll discover a world where employees enjoy constant career advancement, a supportive learning environment, and competitive compensation packages.

More than anything, at Ubi Montreal, you will regularly ship a variety of big, quality titles – Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Rainbow Six, Watch_Dogs, For Honor and… well we can’t disclose all our secrets just yet… – and work with some of the most talented people in the industry

At Ubisoft, you can come as you are. We embrace diversity in all its forms. We’re committed to fostering a work environment that is inclusive and respectful of all differences.