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Animator II

Animator II

At Maxis, we excel at outrageous thinking. It’s the fuel that inspires the best games in the world. We’re trailblazers and great storytellers. But it’s not just about amazing your peers – it’s about amazing yourself and our fans. Take risks. Work with dazzling minds and dare to dream big. Together, we can change the way millions play every day. We are looking for someone with deep insights on how to create the best experience for our players.

You will report into a studio Development Director.

Responsibilities

• Work with Animation Lead and Director to create high-quality keyframe animation with heavy emphasis on full body character acting.
• Produce content under tight game development deadlines.
• With guidance from your Lead, collaborate with other essential contributors of the Production process to fulfill Design Goals. Essential contributions include:
• Work with different technical and art disciplines to solve implementation challenges.
• Estimate and provide scoping options for content to ensure we can meet production deadlines.
• Design animation assets and state machines using our proprietary engine.
• Present implementation strategies alongside other contributors.
• Use both Maya and art tools to implement animated characters and objects in a proprietary engine.
• Use proprietary engine and pre-vis tools to technically verify animation content for self and others.
• Work with other essential disciplines to solve complex game bugs.
• Maintain and track animation assets related to your implementation designs.
• Create technical documentation of your implementations.
• Hold focused discussions concerning technical implementations you have contributed to, to spread knowledge across the animation team.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience as a Gameplay Animator working with and designing animation state machines in a game engine such as Unity, Unreal or similar.
• Exceptional skill creating keyframe animation with a primary emphasis on full body character acting.
• Proficient understanding of both game animation and in-engine state machine design.
• Excellent technical comprehension regarding game animation implementation.
• Excellent collaborator with a passion for working across diverse groups to find creative solutions.
• Passion for learning new workflows, processes, and technology.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.

Bonus Experience

• Experience in the Simulation genre of games
• Comfortable creating entertaining acting performances for reference for your animations or others.
• Experience working with motion capture processes
• Experience with Atlassian Confluence, Jira software, Shotgun or similar tools