Senior Technical Animator

5 Months ago • 5 Years +

Animation

Job Description

Gunzilla Games seeks a Senior Technical Animator to collaborate with Animation and Tech Art teams on character locomotion for their AAA Extraction Battle Royale shooter, Off The Grid. Responsibilities include developing pipelines for characters, weapons, and vehicles; creating tools to improve pipelines; understanding, setting up, and extending locomotion systems; streamlining workflows; researching and developing prototypes; and collaborating with Engineering and Technical Art teams. The role also involves mentoring junior team members and ensuring shippable, memory-efficient, and performant content. Experience with Maya, MotionBuilder, and Python APIs is essential, along with expertise in animation and locomotion systems (state machines, blend trees).

Good To Have:

Unreal Engine experience (Animation Blueprints)
C++ reading ability
Unreal Engine material creation

Must Have:

5+ years experience
Maya/MotionBuilder & Python API expertise
Expert knowledge of animation & locomotion systems
Collaboration with multiple teams
Develop character pipelines
Create tools to improve pipelines
Problem-solving & mentoring

Perks:

Unlimited Paid Vacation
Paid Sick Leave
Flexible Working
Work from Home
Health Insurance
Bonuses
English/German Courses
Public Transportation
Relocation & Accommodation Support
Office Perks & Gym Membership

Add these skills to join the top 1% applicants for this job

character-design

artistic-vision

cpp

unreal

data-structures

game-texts

prototyping

blueprints

python

maya

ABOUT GUNZILLA GAMES

Founded in 2020, Gunzilla Games is the independent AAA video game developer and publisher behind the free-to-play mobile game TECHNOCORE, the gamer-first blockchain GUNZ, and the upcoming next-gen battle royale Off The Grid, in three metropolitan locations: Frankfurt, Germany (HQ); Kyiv, Ukraine; and London, UK. The company is helmed by CEO Vlad Korolov and CSO Alexander Zoll. Gunzilla is built on the desire to innovate and push the limits of the games industry.  

Gunzilla’s formidable team of talent comes from a variety of industry-leading studios and publishers (Ubisoft, Electronic Arts (EA), THQ, etc.) as well as Oscar-nominated screenwriter, director, and producer Neill Blomkamp, Chief Visionary Officer, and the author of the Altered Carbon series, which has been adapted into a popular Netflix show, Richard K. Morgan, Script Writer.  

The Gunzilla Leadership team includes well-known industry professionals like Timur Davidenko, Chief Technology Officer (Far Cry, Warface, and Crysis), Dmitriy Markov, Technical Director (Metro Exodus, ARKTIKA.1), Volodymyr Savin, Audio Director (Cut the Rope, Metro Exodus, HBO’s Chernobyl series), Petr Cherkes, Creative Design Director (The Last of Us, Uncharted 3, Star Wars: The Old Republic), Krasimir Nechevski, Animation Director (Adam, Book of the Dead), Nikolas Gekko, Lead Art Director, (Call of Duty: WWII, Halo Infinite, Destiny) and Kiran Pulicheri, Technical Art Director (Control, Far Cry 6).

OUR VALUES

Players First & Foremost. We aim to create titles that players love and get lost in, so our games are developed with them in mind from the start.
We Believe in Our People. We believe in building strong teams of self-motivated individuals empowered to work at their best in a supportive environment; when we’re strong together, we thrive together.
Commitment to Engagement & Quality. We are deeply passionate about what we do, ensuring we produce next-generation experiences of the highest calibre.
Make Bold Moves & Innovate. We strive to make bold moves and push technology to its limits; there are no wrong steps if the outcome redefines the boundaries.
Open & Honest. We believe in building trust through transparency and honest communication. We’re proud of who we are, what we stand for, and what we’re building.

ABOUT THE JOB

Gunzilla Games are seeking a Senior Technical Animator to work closely with our Animation and Tech art teams on Character Locomotion for our game OTG (Off The Grid), an all-new AAA Extraction Battle Royale shooter, currently available as Early Access on PlayStation®5, Xbox® Series X|S, and PC.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Work with Animators to create best practices and optimal workflows
Develop pipelines for character, weapons and vehicles mainly
Create or design the tools to improve pipelines
Understand / Setup / Extend the current locomotion systems
Streamline workflow by proactively finding solutions and by working with production
Research and develop prototypes for character pipelines and help bring your co-workers’ ideas to life
Work together with the Engineering and Technical Art team as a problem-solving unit of the company
Mentoring other team members
Training junior technical animators

REQUIREMENTS

5+ years of experience
Experience of using Maya or MotionBuilder and Python API for Maya and MotionBuilder
Expert knowledge of animation and locomotion systems
Excellent knowledge of the tech animation topics like state machines, blend trees, etc
Collaborate with character, hard surface, animation, tech art and engineering teams to realise the features
Take ownership of shippable quality content/systems that are memory efficient and performant
Provide clear solutions to complicated issues
Ability to think out of the box to overcome technical challenges
Ability to self-direct, and be autonomous when required

PLUSES

Unreal Engine experience in setting up and maintaining Animation Blueprints together with the Gameplay team
Ability to read C++ Code to enable better communication with Engineers
Create and maintain materials within Unreal Engine