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Character Rigger / Technical Animator
1 year ago
Blackbird Interactive is a creative-fueled, future-driven, independent game studio where the best talent in the industry can find long-term careers to help grow their abilities while working on a wide range of projects, which encompass world-class IPs as well as our own creations across multiple genres.
In 2022, we announced that our studio is implementing a four-day work week as well as supporting in-studio, remote, and hybrid work arrangements as permanent options to our employees.
Do you have a passion for creating new characters, technical problem-solving, artist tool development and pushing the creative limits of heroes and creatures in a fantastical setting?
Blackbird Interactive is looking for creative minds to help develop an innovative new title. You will be responsible for driving the creation of animation rigs, deformation setups, and engine blueprints for a host of characters and creatures.
Responsibilities
- Collaborate with the team’s Animation Lead, Character Lead, and Art, and Technical Art Directors to implement in-game characters with associated gameplay
- Develop rigging workflows and animation tools that effectively address runtime performance and memory requirements across a broad range of target platforms
- Define and establish benchmark rigs and LOD strategies for a variety of characters and creatures that scale effectively across all platform specifications
- Ensure efficient and effective scalability and ease onboarding as requirements to core workflows, pipelines, and test plans
- Work with key production partners, communicating clear scheduling estimates, dependencies, risks and mitigations
- Develop strongly-supported creative, feature and technical proposals and present when needed
- Drive critical review process for rigging in a positive, respectful and nurturing manner
- Invest in growing your skills, knowledge and experience – step out of your comfort zone
Requirements
- 5+ years of experience rigging in a real-time context
- Experience creating high-quality characters in one or more shipping titles
- Expertise with Autodesk Maya and Unreal Engine
- Understanding of real-time animation controllers, including animation blueprints
- Knowledge of Python, MEL, and/or Maya API
- A thorough understanding of real-time performance considerations, implications and strategies
- Current demo reel and/or work samples
Pluses
- Strong design, anatomical, kinesthetic and technical sensibilities
- Animation production experience and/or knowledge
- Experience with Unity or other equivalent game engines
- Autodesk MotionBuilder, Houdini, or Blender experience
- Drawing, Acting, Musical Theater experienceC/C++, C#, other languages
- Good communication skills
Vacation & Extras
+ 4-day, 32-hour work week for all full-time staff
+ Mentorship program
+ Skunkworks internal game jam program
+ 4 weeks paid vacation per year
+ 11 paid stat holidays
+ 3 paid days per year for professional development
+ December holiday studio closure (extra paid time off!)
+ Comprehensive health/dental benefits from day 1
+ Life insurance
+ $300 Healthcare Spending Account per annum
+ RRSP matching up to $1500
+ Profit-sharing bonus program
If applying for an artistic role, please provide a link to your portfolio and/or demo reel.
Any questions about the role and/or accessibility requests can be sent to: hr@blackbirdinteractive.com
Unfortunately, we cannot reply to everyone. Only successful applicants will be contacted about the next steps. Thank you for your understanding.
If you are interested in the role, please apply even if your experience and skills don’t perfectly match our ideal credentials. We are committed to inclusion and especially encourage members of historically marginalized communities to apply. As an equal opportunity employer we encourage applications from all qualified individuals. BBI does not discriminate against applicants based on gender, race, national and ethnic origin, religion, age, sexual orientation, marital and family status, and/or mental or physical disabilities.
Blackbird Interactive is privileged to be developing our projects on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ /Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
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