Senior Rigging/Sim Artist

Description

Blizzard Entertainment’s award-winning Story and Franchise Development team is charged with raising the company’s creative bar with each new effort. We want to hire an experienced Senior Character Technical Artist (Rig/Sim) willing to embrace this challenge and help deliver consistently superior production on each project, every time.  This is a staff position.

Can you obsess on the details while keeping the big picture in mind? Are you a self-starter who can take direction but doesn’t need it? Are you the type of person who can work quickly to solve challenges? You could be the ideal rock star to join our award-winning cinematics department!

• Artist who has built complex rigs and is capable of maintaining a high level of visual and technical quality for all characters with a strong understanding of anatomy, muscles, cloth / hair behavior. Experience with simulation rigs and direct-able shot sims for hair and cloth is a bonus.
• Contributor to ongoing development of our tools, pipeline and workflows. Displays a deep understanding of Maya API, math, python, C++ and develop in a team environment.

You are attuned to the needs of a production pipeline and those of the animators we support. Our team works in an intensely art driven environment and you will work collaboratively with other departments including modeling, animation, FX, and lighting.

• A minimum of 5 years’ experience in rigging characters in Maya, or similar software
• Able to lead, share knowledge and experience, and mentor others
• Strong knowledge of character kinematics, deformations, and topology
• Knowledge of cutting-edge character pipeline and workflow techniques
• Extensive experience in Python
• High proficiency in technical problem solving

• Experience generating cloth / hair rigs and create art directed shot siulations
• Thorough knowledge of layout, modeling, rigging, simulations, and animation tools and workflows currently used in the industry
• Strong communications and leadership skills
• Process oriented
• Knowledge on subjects such as Maya API, tool development and pipeline design
• Extensive experience in MEL, C / C++, or other programming languages
• Able to generate tools to facilitate the rigging and simulation pipeline
• Strong math background; trigonometry, calculus, linear algebra
• Passion for Blizzard games and cinematics

• Resume
• Cover Letter
• Demo Reel and Shot Breakdown showing rigging / simulation and technical proficiency
• Only online submissions will be accepted

Blizzard Entertainment has been rated by Fortune as one of the "Best Places to Work" for several years running (and our ranking continues to rise!). We are a community of 4000 global employees who are passionate about not only gaming, but entertainment and the technology that drives our users experience. Our goal is to delight our customers by never settling for anything but the highest quality and providing worlds filled with creativity and adventure around every corner. You are bright, engaging, eager to learn and ready to make an impact. We've been waiting for you.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.