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Technical Artist - Animation - Maxis

Welcome to Maxis, home to tinkerers, craftspeople, & storytellers. Our drive is to inspire everyone to make a better world through creative play. As the developer of the Sims, we create games and experiences for millions of people around the world and are always looking for new ways to inspire our players. Maxis is a place where you can do what you love and help others grow while doing it; a place where your unique voice can be heard and seen. We put creativity and inclusivity at the core of our work and don't settle for seeing the world only as it is, but strive to build a world as it could be. Read on to see how you can join our team and dream big.

Job Summary

Location: Remote North America - open to most North America locations

Reporting To: Senior Technical Art Director

As a Technical Animator with Maxis, you will be collaborating with multiple disciplines. This includes but is not exclusive to, Animation Directors, Animation Leads, Technical Artists, and Engineers across the Division. The model applicant is passionate about finding efficiencies, exploring new technologies, implementing new tools, and identifying solutions for current and future game development for both existing and new IPs.

Responsibilities:

• Collaborate Closely with the Animation Director, Art Director, Engineers, Character Leads and Animation Leads to deliver tools, rigs and implementation with a forward-looking goal of delivering industry leading animation
• Aid in developing, updating, improving and maintaining a technical pipeline for the Animation and Tech teams on both DCC and engine sides
• Assist and guide in the creation of rigs, best practices and development tools requirements needed to obtain the highest aesthetic quality value
• Create prototypes and pursue research in varying engines for best fits on a variety of products while planning for future technologies in projects pertaining to Animation Tech
• Understanding of performance and optimization requirements and experience diagnosing and profiling content costs
• Firefight production issues, investigating urgent issues and resolving roadblocks
• Keep up with the latest trends and technical tools for animation content development

Qualifications:

• Experience working in real-time engines such as Unity and Unreal Game Engine for technical animation purposes
• Tech art/animation development experience in Maya and video games
• Experience creating and maintaining character rigs
• Ability to create solid documentation and training material
• Knowledge of traditional, mocap and procedural animation workflows
• Experience with designing animation content that integrates well with dynamic systems like character and world physics
• Experience building custom deformers and blend shape solutions
• Proficiency in Python, particularly for scripting in Maya
• Knowledge of version control software (Perforce preferred).
• Familiarity with Shotgun, Jira or other bug tracking and project management software
• Must have excellent collaborative skills, coordinating and working with multiple departments to achieve set goals