Senior Animator II

Cliffhanger Games is a newly formed Seattle Studio focusing on blockbuster action-adventure games and pioneering next-generation emergent storytelling beginning with Marvel’s Black Panther. Join us to pursue your passion to build unique groundbreaking, and inclusive games that empower players to create incredible stories of heroic adventure. Become a foundational part of an ambitious, respectful, and diverse organization as we are looking for a Senior II Animator to join our team.

The Senior II Animator will collaborate with a team of animators, designers, writers, artists, and engineers in the creation of compelling player and NPC movement and combat animation content. The Senior II Animator is an individual contributor role that creates industry leading animation for both human and creature content from previsualization, prototype, to final implementation. Reporting to the Senior Animation Director, the Senior II Animator will help set the quality bar and best practices for character movement and the overall combat experience.

You have a passion for studying the mechanics of human behavior and movement. You are knowledgeable in several forms of martial arts and have an expert sense of combat choreography and cinematic timing. The Senior II Animator will combine those unique skills with strong foundational animation execution, technical knowledge, effective cross discipline collaboration in creating powerful and exciting gameplay character animations.

Responsibilities

• Research and implement new and innovative systems and concepts to fulfill pre-visualization objectives.
• Through animation mastery and demonstration, create and deliver animation content from prototype to final quality that serves as an excellence benchmark and inspiration for the team.
• Through competitive analysis and research, present opportunities to improve workflows to increase animation quality and efficiency
• Partner with Senior Animation Director and key stakeholders in the development of mocap shot list and provide mocap direction when applicable.
• Proactively seek advances in mocap data manipulation techniques through evaluating new software features and tool advances that increase animation output and efficiency.
• Grow and nurture others through demonstratable excellence, mentorship and critique

Qualifications

• Minimum 10 years' experience in the games industry. 4+ years as a Senior II Animator or equivalent.
• A Portfolio demonstrating past work and explaining your specific contributions to each example.