Senior Technical Artist

The Senior Technical Artist is responsible for working in close collaboration with animators, modelers, and the Art Director in order to produce high-quality rigging and skinning for animation with an additional emphasis on facial rigging. You’ll be expected to help streamline the content creation pipeline, creating tools to help yourself and other artists work more efficiently. Additionally, you will be called upon to review rigging and skinning for other technical artists, helping to mentor and grow the team.

Responsibilities:

• Establish rigging and facial rigging pipeline and standards
• Provide feedback to other Technical Artists for rigging and skinning tasks
• Implement control rigs to foster and simplify the work of animators
• Ensure the final result (rigging/skinning) meets the artistic standards of the project
• Develop character, weapon and vehicle rigs that are optimized and provide required functionality for animators to use
• Scripting and updating pipeline tools to help optimize art and animation pipelines
• Set up skeletal mesh actors in UE4, including physics assets, anim-graphs, etc.
• Use diagnostic tools to examine game performance, identifying areas for improvement

• Strong Python scripting experience on a shipped game title or in a related field
• 4+ years experience rigging/skinning in Maya
• At least one shipped AAA game title, working in a technical role
• Detailed working knowledge of Maya
• Detailed working knowledge of character kinematics, deformations, and topology
• Experience working with UE4
• Strong problem-solving skills
• Strong collaboration and communication skills
• Excellent time management skills, excellent interpersonal skills, and the ability to work on a team
• A real passion for games

• Familiarity with character, weapon and vehicle pipelines, such as modeling, rigging and animation
• Strong interest and ability to learn new processes and techniques