Job Title: Technical Artist - Rigging
Department: Art
Employment Status: Full Time
FLSA Status: Salaried, Exempt
Work Location: Remote
Summary:
Final Strike Games is looking for a talented Technical Character Rigging Artist to help our team create game content in the best way possible. This Technical Artist will act as a bridge between the engineering team and the art and design teams, and will ensure our characters have the best controls and tools to achieve amazing animations and performances in- engine.
The ideal candidate is comfortable working in many different applications to achieve success across characters/creatures/weapons/props and world elements, making sure animations and character/weapon controls are efficient and frustration-free should be a priority in everything you make. You must be a good communicator, and you should be able to help make other team members become even better at what they do.
This Technical Artist will apply critical thinking and imagination to help make the development of the game as fun and rewarding as it can be. You will have a proven track record of meeting high expectations and hitting milestone deliverables.
Communication, collaboration, and the ability to be self driven will be the keys to success in this role, as well as a passion for making truly memorable games.
Responsibilities:
- Breaking down existing processes and pipelines, identifying where improvements can be made, explaining to your customers what needs to happen, build consensus around the ideas and then execute on the plan.
- Communicate closely with Artists/Engineers/Designers/Production to develop or facilitate team needs.
- Collaborate with Engineers to optimize runtime performance without sacrificing artistic integrity.
- Improve pipelines and workflows for rigs across characters/weapons/props/environments.
- Solve character and related deformation challenges
- Provide hands-on support to animators/artists.
- Ensure rigs are seamlessly integrated into Unreal
- Inspire and empower the art team to do their very best work, as easily as possible
- Analyze memory/performance for game content throughout the project development.
- Work with cross-disciplinary teams to scope work for sprints and milestones.
- Implement assets in-engine and manage files through source control
- Write & maintain concise documentation and processes for owned features & work
- Identify and fix tech art bugs as needed
- Collaborate with the Production team to maintain schedule and priorities of the content teams’ deliverables and bug fixes
Requirements:
- 5+ years of Rigging experience in game development, VFX/ Feature animation.
- Proven Unreal Engine 4/5 knowledge in actual game development.
- Experience with current generation console platforms.
- Strong skill and understanding of Unreal (blueprints) and Metahuman.
- Actively worked on and shipped at least one AAA title.
- Expert understanding of game art creation tools, requirements and processes.
- Has a passion for rigging!
- Has experience with facial rigging.
- Has an understanding of Houdini.
- Has a strong understanding of animation principles and human anatomy.
- You are a problem solver.
- Strong ability to quickly analyze and adapt pipelines and technology to continuously improve on them.
- Excellent communicator who can take feedback and direction well and is willing to learn and teach others.
- The ability to sell, present ideas and methods to the art team.
- Collaborative, self-motivated, and effective time-management skills.
Nice to have:
- Working knowledge of C++.
- Ability to write tools in Python/Mel for DCC applications.
- Technical writing experience.
About Final Strike Games:
Final Strike Games is a multiplayer focused game studio founded by industry veterans. FSG is currently developing for PC and Console. For more information please visit www.finalstrikegames.com
Final Strike Games is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please let us know.