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Technical Animator

About Splash Damage

At Splash Damage, we’re dedicated to crafting team-based multiplayer games that ignite friendships as much as they do healthy competition and teamwork.

Our teams celebrated the launch of Gears Tactics earlier this year, and we’re currently developing Outcasters for Stadia along with several unannounced titles.

As an UnrealEngine focused studio, we're excited to be transitioning our teams to the latest in UE5 technology and we're looking for skilled and passionate developers to help us drive this.

We're advocates for work-life balance and offer a comprehensive benefits package focused on the well-being of our staff and their families.

We believe that teams create the best work when they have a range of perspectives and experiences to draw from. Therefore we're committed to increasing diversity across our studio, fostering an inclusive environment to ensure everyone's voices are heard.

Due to the on-going COVID-19 outbreak, we're all currently working from home. We’re still looking to welcome new team members, who'll join us remotely until we return to the studio

The Role

As a Technical Animator, you will be responsible for creating and maintaining our Animation toolset on an exciting new project. You will maintain consistent high standards of support for both our character and animation teams whilst collaborating with the rest of the Technical Art and engineering teams to give an edge to our animation technology.

You understand the creative process involved in character and animation authoring, have an artistic sensibility and eye for good-looking animations. You have a pragmatic and practical approach to working with technology, with experience of pushing technical limits and ensuring the Animation team can work as efficiently as possible. If this sounds like an interesting challenge to you, we would love to hear from you!

As a Technical Animator, you will:

• Create new animation tools and maintain our animation toolset
• Create re-usable and bespoke rigs and skin data
• Pioneer novel techniques for our animation pipeline
• Identify bottlenecks in our animation pipeline and help resolve them with robust technical implementations
• Work with the Animation, Engineering, and Technical Art departments to ensure all dependencies are met
• Assist the engineering team with implementing Animation-related tools and features
• Support the Animation and character teams in debugging tools or game related issues

Essential Skills and Experience

• Experience as a Technical Animator on shipped AAA titles
• Intimate knowledge of Autodesk Maya and Motion Builder with an excellent understanding of Maya’s rigging, deformation and skinning systems
• Strong working knowledge in Python and proficiency with the Open Maya API
• Solid understanding of Linear Algebra, Calculus and related concepts found in animation technologies
• Good understanding of Unreal’s runtime animation systems such as state-machines and animation blueprints
• A keen eye for proper form and deformation throughout wide ranges of movements
• Strong proactive problem-solving attitude and the ability to work with minimal supervision
• Passion for games and game development
• Excellent spoken and written communication

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Experience as an Animator
• Well-versed in human and animal anatomy
• Good knowledge of character topology for proper deformations

• Knowledge of lower level programming languages such as C++

Splash Damage is an equal opportunity employer. We believe our teams create better work when they have a range of perspectives to draw from, and we are committed to creating an inclusive working environment that celebrates diversity.