Animator (External Development)

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Join the award-winning team that created God of War

Santa Monica Studio is looking for an Animator to partner with the external development group and help drive a variety of animation-related tasks.

This hybrid role leverages your animation skills and your ability to communicate with outside partners. Team members will collaborate with external animation studios to produce high-quality assets. Additionally, you will facilitate the integration of their work into the game engine, address technical issues, and troubleshoot problems encountered by our external animation teams. 

The ideal candidate possesses the experience and knowledge necessary to create high-quality animations in a game development environment, has a strong understanding of game animation pipelines, and demonstrates the ability to collaborate with our external teams as well as our Animation Director and Leads to successfully ship a AAA game.

Responsibilities

• Regularly represent the studio in external animation-related communication and discussion with an external group of animators
• Work with the External Development group to maintain strong relationships with external animation studios and ensure their success in working with our team to meet Santa Monica Studio standards
• Create documentation for outsourcing animation pipeline guidelines, tutorials, examples, and delivery expectations for our external partners
• Assist the ExDev animation team to ensure content deliveries meet the studio's artistic and technical standards, including ensuring that delivered assets are of final shipping quality
• Help troubleshoot animation, rigging, or workflow problems with external partners
• Integrate delivered content directly into the game
• Partner with the production team to help track incoming assets and deliveries

Requirements

• 3+ years of experience as a Gameplay Animator in the game industry
• Strong understanding of gameplay animation principles, including weight, timing, and responsiveness
• Proficiency in Maya and experience working with animation in a real-time game engine (Unreal Engine, proprietary engines, etc.)
• Working knowledge of character creation and animation pipelines
• Exhibits strong communication, organizational, time management, and interpersonal skills
• Shows an interest in tackling the challenges of collaborating with multiple external animation groups

Preferred Experience

• Experience working with outsourcing teams and animation pipelines
• Familiarity with combat, traversal, or systemic animation systems in third-person action games
• Experience using Shotgrid is a plus

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We strive to create an inclusive environment, empower employees and embrace diversity. We encourage everyone to respond. 

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