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Technical Artist (Character FX)

Crystal Dynamics
Redwood City, CA, United States
4 years ago
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The Technical Artist (Character FX) will be responsible for creating character effects such as cloth, hair and fur simulations (to be solved at run-time) while using existing tools and making recommendations and developing new tools to be used in Character FX to help enhance the pipeline.

The person in this role will be a pro-active problem solver who can demonstrate a strong sense of creativity and respect for aesthetics. This person will have successful track record of improving performance through analysis and optimization while maintaining the visual fidelity of a gorgeous and immersive world. Character Technical Artists must demonstrate their ability to work with both art and science.

Essential Duties:

· To work under the direction of creative director, art and technical leads.

· Use Crystal’s production tools to build simulation setups, run simulation tasks in Maya and Game engine

· Troubleshoot and create new setups and tools that push the quality and fidelity of our work

· Highly effective communication of work progress, problems or suggestions to leads including feedback to improve methodologies where appropriate

· Ensure assigned work quality meets production expectations from both technical and artistic points-of-view

· Maintain and develop and pipeline, tools, and processes

· Research and develop new tools, troubleshooting technical issues, and keeping detailed records/documentation of tool creation while working with 3D and animation teams to streamline process and raise our quality bar

· Skinning characters and props. Ensuring that skin deforms properly

· Scripting in Maya, including MEL/Python/GUI design

· Provide leadership, inspiration, and mentorship for technical artists and animators

Skills:

· 3+ years of experience in Cloth/Hair on game, films or commercials

· Strong knowledge of Maya for Cloth/Hair – Experience with cloth simulation in Unreal is a great plus

· Good sense of deformation and simulation behavior

· Basic understanding of Liner Algebra and working with matrices and vectors in 3D space

· Ability to work well under pressure and deadlines

· Mel Scripting, Python, C++

· Understanding of Trigonometry and Calculus is a plus

· Houdini experience is a plus

· Shipped AAA titles is a plus

Crystal Dynamics is an EOE and M/F/D/V employer.

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