This job might no longer be available.
Principal Animation Programmer - Studio Elevation (Remote)
1 year ago
nDreams Studio Elevation is bringing the evolution of VR development to core gamers.
This is an all-new studio seeded by the creative talent that brought you the innovative, genre defining award-winning VR title Phantom: Covert Ops.
We are looking for exceptional talent to help pave the way forward with fresh innovation for the next generation of VR hardware and software.
Requirements
The Role
Elevation is re-establishing the boundaries of VR. We’re looking for an exceptionally talented Principal Animation Programmer to help us explore, create, and deliver world-leading innovation in VR games. Become one of the core team members to help path-find our remote first studio, crafting a new generation of VR development and bringing core VR games to fruition.
As the Principal Animation Programmer, you will be responsible for architecting and leading the development of the systems that drive the movement of our characters, creatures, and the world in Unreal 5 to provide a level of immersion and presence that has not yet been seen in VR games. You will be working in collaboration with a diverse team of programmers, designers and artists to create genre-leading titles, driving the discovery, implementation and refinement of intuitive, world-class, aspirational VR games.
Key Responsibilities:Take ownership of the architecture, direction and development of the systems, pipelines and set-ups that allow our characters and world to move and come to life in VR, integrating with Unreal 5 animation systems, content creation tools and your own bespoke code.Collaborate with Technical Animation and animators to specify animation sets and generate good data to enable well-animated and performant characters and creatures.Alongside the animation team, create a believable player character using a mix of IK, real-time VR spatial input, animation data and other technologies that you evaluate and deem appropriate, alongside high-end AI-driven NPC, enemy and creature characters.Help specify and drive our environmental and interaction animations, VFX & destruction animation, storytelling and physics-driven animation such as rag-doll and impact.Ensure animation systems and data are robust and consistently performant.Self-develop your own knowledge of state-of-the-art animation techniques and the inner workings of Unreal 5’s animation pipelines. Provide intel to the team on developments and best practices.Drive the higher-level technical design and own project planning for your areas of work, liaising with other disciplines for the best outcomes.Be a positive behavioural and mental role model for the team and studio.Help with staff development, departmental structure, mentoring and hiring.Essential capabilities:
- 2 years of professional animation programming experience at a senior level, with a minimum of two shipped titles on a current-generation console, PC, VR headset or mobile.
- A thorough knowledge of C++ including high-performance programming.
- Proven, detailed knowledge of animation programming concepts including animation graphs and state machines, character rigging, complex blending, physics interactions, IK techniques, and how to combine them with art to realise convincing character and world animation inside a modern game engine.
- A detailed knowledge of engine tooling and how in-game animation systems interface into content creation and in-engine tools to enable a multi-discipline effort in authoring interactive content.
- A good working knowledge of 3D maths.
- Proven, demonstrable knowledge of game development processes, real-time implementation, optimization, and cross-platform development.
- Strong English communication skills with a focus on positive cross discipline teamwork and an ability to communicate complex technical information to non-technical staff.
- A committed team player, recognizing the importance and value of people within a technology environment.
Desired experience:
- Professional experience of VR game development.
- Professional experience developing shipped games in Unreal.
- A good understanding of Unreal’s animation systems and how to drive them effectively.
- Prior experience with Perforce and Visual studio
- Experience developing for PlayStation, Xbox, Steam or Oculus
Benefits
This is the opportunity to build upon an already proven, world-class foundation of VR expertise, to further shape and mould a new way of working, that continues to deliver and innovate for the next generation of core VR games.
We are a remote-first studio, with all the perks that come with it. Work from anywhere to push the boundaries of VR with cutting-edge technology and the support of established VR expertise from the wider nDreams group.
Rapidly growing to support a variety of genres, nDreams is one of the world’s leading developers/publishers focused on VR games, creating multiple studios dedicated to making the best games out there.
Create Your Profile — Game companies can contact you with their relevant job openings.