Senior Animation Outsource Supervisor – Diablo IV | Irvine, CA or Albany, NY

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Your Mission
Blizzard Entertainment’s Diablo IV team seeks a senior animation supervisor ready to breathe life into a menagerie of heroes, villains, monsters, and story characters.

As an Animation Outsource Supervisor your responsibilities will range from using internal tools, retrofitting existing cutscenes with new heroes, implementing animations into the game engine, and Supervising a crew of outsource talent to help bring the world of Sanctuary to life. This is a combat heavy game, featuring lots of fast and intense action as well as creature work and story-driven acting. Alongside your fellow animators we encourage cross-discipline feedback, supporting the needs of Design and being proactive and solution orientated. Being aware of your impact on other departments is important, as Animation Outsource Supervisors are expected to clearly understand this aspect of the content we create. If you are a proactive problem solver who loves creative challenges and growing teams, this is the role for you!

This role is anticipated to be a hybrid work position, with some work on-site and some work-from-home. The potential home studio for this role is Albany, NY or Irvine, CA.

What you offer:
Priorities can often change in a fast-paced environment like ours, so this role includes, but is not limited to, the following responsibilities:

• Create engaging animations with a primary focus on cutscene acting animations for the hero character. Ensure all the animation matches the cinematic vision.
• Hold regular feedback sessions with vendors.
• Be a champion of the IP, the story, mood, and level of detail.
• Understand acting gestures, interpret dialogue, and have the ability to create realistic face and body performances.

Minimum Requirements:
Experience

• 5+ years’ experience in animating characters using Maya or an equivalent 3D program.
• 2+ years’ experience in game development.
• 3+ years’ experience supervising animation.
• You will need a demo reel showing your skill in animating the human bipedal figure as well as facial performance. In addition, show a good understanding of traditional animations principles and how they can be used to enhance cinematics.
• Have a passion for animation and strong communication skills to enable you to work collaboratively with a multi-disciplinary art team to help bring characters to life within the vision of the game design.
• Experience working in an Outsource pipeline.
• Experience leading a team.
• Must be comfortable with getting in touch with vendors around the world and establishing relationships and OS pipelines.
• Comfortable working with motion capture data and proficient in keyframe animation.

Knowledge & Skills

• Proficient with modern game authoring techniques.
• Ability to identify and solve technical challenges of building art for game cinematics.

Extra Points

• Skills in one or more related subject areas – illustration, rigging, VFX, storyboard, previz, camera, acting, cinematography, face anatomy or technical art.

We love hearing from anyone who is enthusiastic about changing the games industry. Not sure you meet all qualifications? Let us decide! Research shows that women and members of other under-represented groups tend to not apply to jobs when they think they may not meet every qualification, when, in fact, they often do! We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment and strongly encourage you to apply.

Accommodation Request: We are committed to working with and providing reasonable assistance to individuals with physical and mental disabilities. If you are a disabled individual requiring an accommodation to apply for an open position, please email your request to accommodationrequests@activisionblizzard.com. General employment questions cannot be accepted or processed here. Thank you for your interest.

Our World
At Blizzard Entertainment, we pour our hearts and souls into everything we create. Best known for iconic video game universes including Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo, and StarCraft, we’ve been creating genre-defining games for millions of players around the world for more than 30 years. We’re on a quest: bring our dreams to life and craft the most epic entertainment experiences…ever. Hard work, iteration and polish go into the Blizzard “secret recipe,” but the most important ingredients come from dedicated people who share our vision. If that sounds like you, join us.

The videogame industry and therefore our business is fast-paced and will continue to evolve. As such, the duties and responsibilities of this role may be changed as directed by the Company at any time to promote and support our business and relationships with industry partners.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status, among other characteristics.

Rewards

We provide a suite of benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being for ‘Every World’ - we’ve got our employees covered! Subject to eligibility requirements, the Company offers comprehensive benefits including:

• Medical, dental, vision, health savings account or health reimbursement account, healthcare spending accounts, dependent care spending accounts, life and AD&D insurance, disability insurance;
• 401(k) with Company match, tuition reimbursement, charitable donation matching;
• Paid holidays and vacation, paid sick time, floating holidays, compassion and bereavement leaves, parental leave;
• Mental health & wellbeing programs, fitness programs, free and discounted games, and a variety of other voluntary benefit programs like supplemental life & disability, legal service, ID protection, rental insurance, and others;
• If the Company requires that you move geographic locations for the job, then you may also be eligible for relocation assistance.

Eligibility to participate in these benefits may vary for part time and temporary full-time employees and interns with the Company. You can learn more by visiting https://www.benefitsforeveryworld.com/ .