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NHL - Sr Animator (Temporary - 6 months)

The Role: Sr Animator

We are looking for a candidate specialized in the area of animation realization, focusing on the implementation process.

Responsibilities:

• Work with the animation team to implement animation content.
• Work closely with the Animation Software Engineer, together with the Animation Director and Technical Director, to solve technical animation challenges.
• Ensure that the animation team can achieve a high level of fluidity and believability with the animations at run time i.e. smooth transitions, natural weight shifts, variety and depth
• Ensure that the responsiveness and overall design of the character motions conform to the goals of the design team
• Innovate and push the boundaries for achieving believable character motion, from a technical implementation perspective – with a focus on marrying the characters to both their environments and the situations that they’re in, whilst ensuring that they have plenty of personality!
• Help design, plan and coordinate the animation workloads for the project (from a more technical perspective)
• Help establish efficient pipelines and procedures
• Define, communicate and estimate tasks in a proficient manner

Required skills and experience

• Experience working on at least 2 AAA titles, Action Adventure genre preferred
• 4+ years using proprietary animation tools and setting up state flows with an established game engine i.e. Unreal, Unity, CryEngine
• Experience working on at least one title that demonstrates more advanced locomotion/animation techniques and the role you played
• Experience working with primary animation implementation techniques, for example; parametric blends, additives, partitioned animations, phase matching, IK solutions, ragdoll… (and numerous other procedural solutions)
• Experience working with both animation-inspired and physics-driven gameplay systems with an understanding of the requirements for root/trajectory motion.
• Experience realizing the motions - from a technical implementation perspective - for bipedal, quadrupedal and creature-based motions
• Excellent problem solving skills. You will identify issues and resolve them efficiently
• Have a good understanding of animation principals and anatomy
• Have a proactive work ethic – not afraid to take on sizeable animation related challenges
• Able to communicate well with other disciplines (especially designers and software engineers)
• Have a very positive outlook and an approachable persona

Beneficial skills and experience

• Experience working with character motion that has a more exaggerated, heavily stylized aesthetic
• Experience using true squash and stretch techniques > blend-shapes and pose space deformation would prove beneficial
• Experience working with advanced facial animation rigs
• Experience with MEL, Python, C# or C++
• A capable key-framer and motion editor
• Experience working with Maya and Motion Builder

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More about our location: http://careers.ea.com/our-locations/burnaby-eav