This job might no longer be available.

Gameplay Animator - The Sims

Locations: This is a fully remote position, available across most European locations.

Welcome to Maxis, home to tinkerers, craftspeople, and storytellers. Our drive is to inspire everyone to make a better world through creative play. As the developer of The Sims, we create games and experiences for millions of people around the world and are always looking for new ways to inspire our players. Maxis is a place where you can do what you love and help others grow while doing it; a place where your unique voice can be heard and seen. We put creativity and inclusivity at the core of our work and don't settle for seeing the world only as it is, but strive to build a world as it could be. Read on to see how you can join our team and dream big.

As an Animator, you will create high quality key-frame animations and collaborate with other disciplines to design and implement interaction state-flows in-engine. You will be creating animations that express a wide range of emotions and personality. You have a strong understanding of the latest keyframe animation workflows. You have extensive experience using Maya and implementing content in-engine. You will receive direction and feedback directly from Senior Animators and the Animation 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.
• 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.

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

More About Maxis:

Many team members have a tenure of over a decade. Here are some top reasons folks join our team and stay:

• Work life balance. We work diligently to ensure we make incredible products while prioritizing our team member’s wellbeing. We uphold a people first mentality.
• Commitment to diversity. We take immense pride in the diversity of our team members. We know unique perspectives and experiences are critical to our success as a team in order to produce the leading simulation game in the world.
• Creative autonomy. We firmly believe good ideas come from anywhere. Joining the team means contributing to the whole production process, from concept through final in game experience.
• Purpose. We provide meaningful content that impacts our player’s in game and real world experiences, motivating us to push the boundaries of what’s possible.
• Community. We thrive at Maxis because of our incredibly supportive and creative colleagues and players that bring fun and positivity into doing what we love.