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Senior Gameplay Animator - Permanent

OVERVIEW

About Us

London Studio are building a team from the ground up for an upcoming PlayStation 5 online game. Quality is something that we are immensely proud to be aiming for, and we are looking at putting the right team together to help take us forward. New starters will be joining at the perfect time to get involved in shaping our plans for a project we are exceptionally passionate about.

We are also part of a wider network of PlayStation Studios and there are lots of opportunities for collaboration and wider support from our sister studios like Insomniac, Guerrilla, Naughty Dog and Media Molecule to name a few.

About the Role

We are looking for a highly skilled Senior Gameplay Animator to join our team. Where they will take focus, ownership, and responsibility for the animation part of our gameplay, by building and supporting our Animation networks, systems, and pipelines. Which in turn empowers our gameplay animation to deliver high quality animation that complements our gameplay mechanics, responsiveness, and behaviour.

Working closely on our groundbreaking proprietary animation and engine technologies offers a unique opportunity to use your creative and technical skill to truly define a next-generation multiplayer gameplay experience on PlayStation!

Scope of Work

• Work within our engine and tools to develop complex Animation networks and systems together with Animators, Gameplay Programmers and Gameplay Design.
• Debug, optimise and maintain our animation networks and pipelines to ensure fluid playability, but also to solve complex gameplay animation issues when required.
• Collaborate on setting technical, visual and gameplay constraints, complimenting the gameplay experience whilst ensuring a high level of quality for Art and Animation. For example, supporting and validating the visual aspect of new gameplay mechanics.
• Support development and improvement of gameplay animation technologies with Animation Engineers. Translating game design needs to requirements, features and systems that are technically coherent with our existing strategy and code.
• Lead by example, taking ownership for a critical area of our gameplay animation. This involves both sharing knowledge but also responsibility for supporting planning, estimation and prioritisation of tasks, progress, and timeframes.
• When required, work with both keyframe and motion capture data.
• Ability to work well as a team member or as a sub team lead.

Essential Knowledge / Experience

• Experience in technical implementation. Having used game editors, scripting languages and game engines, with hands on experience of animation networks and state machines.
• Ability to recognise quality and excellence and be able to deliver on gameplay moments and sequences that are fun and meets the highest standards of quality, performance, and polish.
• Strong understanding of 3D content creation packages, such as Maya.

Desirable Knowledge & Skills

• Understanding of animation principals and fundamentals, being able to craft across a broad range of styles from dynamic stylisation to realistic body mechanics.
• Work to understand the advantages and limitations of proprietary technologies when crafting pipelines (memory, GPU, and CPU performance).
• Experience producing high quality key-frame animation (great sense of weight, timing, and strong posing).

Impact and Complexity

This is a fundamental role in our animation and gameplay teams not just in setting standards and best practise, but it shares a key responsibility in giving our millions of players a unique, responsive and next-generation multiplayer gameplay experience on PlayStation.

Supervision

Senior Animators bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise, they are the pillars of our teams. They have no people management responsibilities. But they are the role models and voices of their teams, and it is expected that they lead by example, mentor, inspire and support more junior members of the team.

In taking charge of large areas of the projects, Senior Animators will be responsible for supervising quality and completion of supporting artists and partners.

Culture Ambassador

We encourage you to bring your best-unaltered self to work! We know that what makes for a phenomenal team culture is our team showing up and being themselves, which means they own a part of the team spirit. What makes us great is that we accept our people and their differences. We hope you have a willingness to continue to build outstanding working environments for everyone and not just yourself.

DE&I Advocate

You are passionate about Diversity and Inclusion, and to you, they aren’t just buzzwords. You will understand that these words speak to people’s lived experiences that may differ from your own. You will embrace education around the subject and understand that your actions will showcase your commitment to DE&I, our culture and core values that promote inclusion and equality for all.

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Our roles can be flexible in terms of work location in the UK. We will consider the individual’s preference for hybrid, remote or onsite working. Unfortunately we are not in a position to accommodate remote working outside of the UK.

However, if you wish to relocate to the UK and require sponsorship, we can support you with the visa process.

We have so many benefits, and we felt that if we listed them all out here it might look like we are bragging! What we can say is that we have you covered, from health and wellbeing, to finance and personal development, there is something there for everyone! If you would like to know more head to our benefits and perks page!

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We are absolutely committed to promoting and increasing diversity across the studio, welcoming applications from all groups who are underrepresented in the games industry and if you don't feel you meet 100% of the criteria, we offer training to upskill our staff.