Senior Character Animator

Description

Spark is looking for a Senior Animator to create memorable performances with the Lost Planet 3 team currently in development for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC markets. You should have a thorough knowledge of classical animation principles, a strong grasp of animation pipelines, and be a veteran game developer. The ideal candidate is both an outstanding animator and someone who can work with high-level direction, possessing strong leadership skills, production-sensibilities, and the talent to produce and implement the highest quality work. Come join us now!

Responsibilities:
• Create high quality character animation at a quality bar suitable for next-generation console development.
 • Work closely with the Lead Animator and colleagues to develop animation assets that fulfill the requirements of the project’s game design and visual design.
• Work with lead animator to set the style, look and feel of the animation for key characters.
• Consistently meet project deadlines in a timely manner without compromising artistic integrity.
• Assist in the integration of animation with designers and engineers to create compelling in-game animation.
• Work in a team-oriented environment and use organizational and interpersonal skills on a daily basis and bring a creative and proactive attitude to the task of animating performances.
• Work with a group of animators to create compelling and consistent performances for all major characters and utilize both hand and mo-cap animation techniques to create animation of primary and secondary characters.
• Work collaboratively with all levels of the development team, including active participation in Spark’s agile-development process. 
• Cultivate a positive team dynamic, and exhibit a professional attitude by demonstrating a good balance between creativity and practical flexibility.

Requirements

• Demonstrated professional character animation experience in the entertainment industry, showing command of weight, timing and posing through key-framing.
• 4-5 years professional character animation experience on multiple projects. Proven industry experience shipped game projects highly desired.
• Thorough understanding of Autodesk Maya.
• Strong understanding of classic animation principles and its fundamentals (staging, timing, anticipation, follow through, exaggeration, squash and stretch) as well as the ability to create the full range of lifelike performances from the subtle to the dramatic and powerful. Demonstrated by a strong portfolio.
• Experience animating both male and female bipedal characters that showcase both acting/pathos and action performances.
• Experience in animating creatures, as well as, mechanical (machinery) animation.
• Experience with facial animation and lip-synch.
• Excellent communication, time-management and organizational skills. A strong ability to work across multiple disciplines to gather feedback and address cross-functional issues. Penchant for practical innovation and the ability to bring new ideas to the table.
• Passionate player of games with an ability to analyze competitive products for their strengths and weaknesses.

Desired Skills / Extras

• Strong traditional animation/art background (B.A. or equivalent degree).
• Previous animation experience on a shipped next generation console project.
• Unreal 3 Engine experience.
• Third person action genre experience.
• Experience working in an Agile/Scrum development environment.
• Proficient with Autodesk motion Builder.
• Experience with motion capture pipelines and data adjustment in a game environment.

This Job is no longer active!