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Principal Animation Artist - Unpublished R&D Product

As a member of the Animation team, you bring characters to life through classic animation principles and body mechanics. You will create high quality animations for a diverse and rapidly growing universe, including bipeds, quadrupeds, and creatures. A great reel will showcase a variety of game-related animation, a strong foundation in the principles of animation, and an understanding of editing and cinematography. Also working to expand our current content pipeline, you will collaborate with designers and artists to develop new features and technologies. Your craft expertise will breathe life into iconic and beloved characters for players.

As a Principal Animation Artist on the Research & Development (R&D) team, you will be responsible to set and drive the vision for a project's cinematic-centric gameplay experience. The role requires an eye for cinematography, an understanding of how to frame action sequences, and an eye for editing. You’ll partner with design and engineering to build, implement and refine the supporting systems. You will report directly to the project's Art Director.

Responsibilities:

• Set an animation vision based on the game design that embodies the project's creative direction
• Create animation assets for highly iterative gameplay prototypes
• Create animated action sequences with energetic camera work
• Integrate animations and set up simple animation trees
• Continuously deliver animations assets that fulfill the requirements of the project
• Champion animation as a way to enhance the player’s experience
• Meet project deadlines in a timely manner without compromising artistic integrity
• Consistently communicate with the team by giving and receiving feedback, directing next steps, and providing clear goals and outcomes to your team

Required Qualifications:

• 8+ years of professional experience working in animation
• 8+ years of professional experience working in Maya
• Professional experience working in Unreal
• Professional experience producing real-time cinematics

Desired Qualifications:

• Strong sense of game design and gameplay
• Experience with mocap animation
• Experience with pre-viz’d action sequences
• Experience in cinematography/camera work
• Experience shipping a game title in Unreal

Our Perks:

Riot has a focus on work/life balance, shown by our open paid time off policy, in addition to other perks such as flexible work schedules. We offer medical, dental, and life insurance, parental leave for you, your spouse/domestic partner and children, and a 401k with company match. Check out our benefits pages for more information.

Riot Games fosters a player and workplace experience that values teamwork embodied by the Summoner's Code and Community Code . Our culture embraces differences as a strength, and our values are the guiding principles for how we approach work. We are committed to putting diversity and inclusion (D&I) at the center of everything we do, and promoting a fair and collaborative culture where Rioters treat one another with dignity and respect. We encourage you to read more about our value of thriving together and our ongoing work to build the most inclusive company in Gaming .

It’s our policy to provide equal employment opportunity for all applicants and members of Riot Games, Inc. Riot Games makes reasonable accommodations for handicapped and disabled Rioters and does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, handicap, veteran status, marital status, criminal history, or any other category protected by applicable federal and state law, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance relating to an applicant's criminal history.