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Technical Animator

A leader in creating deep and engaging experiences on PC and mobile, Jagex was founded in 2001 and is today one of the UK’s biggest and most respected video game developers and publishers.

Famed for its flagship MMOs RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, Jagex has welcomed more than 260million player accounts to its world and created a $1bn lifetime franchise revenue. Today the RuneScape franchise exists beyond running games in live operations; our titles are living games that connect and inspire millions of players, with content and experiences both inside and outside of inexhaustible game worlds.

Both RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, on PC and mobile, offer ever-evolving, highly-active worlds and our community-focussed development ethos empowers players to have a real say in how each game is shaped.

Jagex is expanding and extending its portfolio with fresh franchise titles, new IP and, in 2018 launched Jagex Partners, delivering third-party publishing and operational services exclusively for the living games of the future.

Jagex employs more than 400 people at its Cambridge headquarters and is on the hunt for talented people to work across the business to help the company to achieve yet another year of record growth and player satisfaction.

The Technical Animator is responsible for delivery of effective rigging across humanoid, quadruped and a wide range of fantasy creatures.

They are also responsible for the effective delivery of rigs and animation into game, including the bug fixing of any export/runtime issues.

The Technical Animator collaborates with animators to ensure rigs are easy, flexible and effective to animate with.

The Technical Animator supports and co-develops the rigging pipeline and workflow to meet the evolving needs of the game to improve usability and efficiency.

A technical animator collaborates with technical artists and animators to identify any other processes and tools that will improve the full animation pipeline.

Main Duties and Responsibilities:

• Develop and deliver control rigs which include features such as secondary animation, drag joints, jiggles and smears using third-party frameworks e.g Rapid Rig/mGear
• Collaborate with fellow Technical Artists in the design and development of facial rigging solutions for creatures and humans
• Delivery of rigs with high performance and excellent mesh deformation
• Migrate existing rigs and animation to new formats
• Identify inefficiencies and problems in existing pipelines and propose and develop solutions
• Collaborate with fellow technical artists and animators to implement tools and workflow improvements, supporting the animation team with rigging/skinning solutions and problem solving
• Collaborate with engine and tools teams to deliver high quality animation to game
• Work cross discipline to develop new techniques to improve the game’s animation
• Document tools and processes required to educate animators (internal and external) on new tools and workflows
• Learn and develop proficiency with all required pipeline tools

What we are looking for:

• Experience rigging and skinning complex characters/objects to realistic and exaggerated styles
• Curious, with good processes for proactively identifying and solving rigging problems
• Working evidence of delivering rigs and pipeline tools from previous projects
• A strong demo reel that reflects this experience with rigs and pipeline
• Excellent communication skills with ability to liaise and collaborate across art and tech disciplines
• Good eye for animation is a must, with a thorough understanding of animation principles
• Good knowledge of human and creature anatomy with an understanding of biomechanics
• Understanding of planning and implementing blend trees and state machines to aid animation to engine implementation
• Good working knowledge of animation implementation in UE/Unity or equivalent game engines
• In-depth knowledge of Maya, and experience with Python, Qt Frameworks (PySide, PyQt), and familiarity with the Maya API
• Candidate displays a keen interest in investigating future technical animation workflows and pipelines from the rest of the industry
• Bonus
• Good working knowledge of the mGear framework
• Experience with cloth and dynamics
• MotionBuilder API experience
• Experience solving, cleaning and implementing motion capture data within a game engine
• Knowledge of other languages which are helpful to broader tools beyond Maya, such as JavaScript, PHP, SQL, C# or C++ and so on.
• Traditional visual art skills

- Flexible Working

- Bonus Scheme

- Private Health Care

- Gym Membership

- Generous Pension Contributions

- Life Insurance

- Free Cycle Repair

- Income Protection

- Dental Plan

- Free Fruit and Drinks

- Subsidised Canteen

Feel like you fit this role, but don’t meet all the requirements? We strive for fresh perspectives, so as long as you can demonstrate how your attitude and other abilities might make up for any gaps we would welcome your application!

Jagex are an equal opportunities employer and positively encourages applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates regardless of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, religion or belief.