What are the responsibilities and job description for the Senior/Lead Animator position at Brace Yourself Games?
Company Description
Brace Yourself Games is expanding. The creators of Cadence of Hyrule, Crypt of the Necrodancer, Phantom Brigade, and Industries of Titan are now hiring an animator to help bring our creations to life!
Job Description
BYG is looking for a senior/lead animator to help bring our creations to life! Contribute to a new and unique melee combat-based strategy IP. Play a key role in shaping process studio wide. And be a vital voice in defining the next chapter in the best practices and culture of our studio.
Duties will include:
- Working with the Art Director to create realistic and stylized locomotion and combat animations in Maya using both keyframe and motion capture
- Creating game ready skeleton joint chains and painting skin weights
- Creating and maintaining character and prop rigs for use in Maya
- Exporting animations from Maya and implementing into Unreal Engine
- Creating and maintaining blueprints and state machines in Unreal Engine
- Identifying possible issues with allocated tasks and working with Lead Animator to overcome them
- Managing other animators and supporting their career growth
- Actively soliciting peer review for initial feedback when appropriate
- Keeping up-to-date with technology, workflows, styles, etc. in the industry and pertaining to your field
- An ongoing commitment to a diverse, equitable and inclusive workspace and promoting our continual growth in these areas
Qualifications
Qualifications:
- Portfolio demonstrating relevant skills, only online work submissions (e.g. website, blog or online album). Accompanied by a shot breakdown explaining your contribution to each shot.
- Minimum of 5 years of experience
- Proficiency in Maya
- A thorough understanding of weight, motion, balance and physical form for both animate and inanimate objects
- Strong understanding of animation principles, and how they apply to gameplay
- Experience with keyframe animation
- Experience cleaning and polishing motion capture performances
- Strong sense of posing and timing
- Experience with rigging and skinning characters, creatures and props
- Experience creating animation state machines in either Unity or Unreal
- Strong collaborative skills working with multiple departments (design, engineering, production, QA)
- Self-motivated, proactive, great verbal communicator, with an open mind-set when receiving feedback and able to pivot based on project priorities
- Experience mentoring or managing other developers
- Excitement for building inclusive games for diverse audiences
- A commitment to and experience fostering a collaborative and inclusive work environment
- Humble with a growth mindset and excellent collaboration skills
- Willing to relocate to British Columbia, Canada (we will sponsor a visa for the right candidate)
Nice to have:
- Experience with procedural animation
- Experience with Advanced Skeleton
- Experience with Faceware Retargeter & Analyzer
- Proficient with basic functionality of source control, and task tracking
- Experience with scripting (MEL or Python), or coding (C# or C )
Note: Don’t feel like you meet every requirement listed above? We encourage you to apply anyway! We recognise that not everyone’s journey is the same and that each person brings something unique and wonderful, all of which makes BYG a better place.
Additional Information
Brace Yourself Games is located in downtown Vancouver, Canada. This position is open to in person work at our downtown office or remote work anywhere within BC. This is a permanent full time paid position. Rate of pay is above industry standard and includes a profit sharing plan and an outstanding benefits package. We develop games because games make us happy. If we’re not having fun doing it, what’s the point? No one at BYG is required to work more than 32 hours per week. We maintain an inclusive, supportive, fun company culture.
Free Choice Friday where you can skill up, learn something new or make something (or take every Friday off making every week a 4 day work week)! More info: https://braceyourselfgames.com/2021/09/14/free-choice-fridays/
More info on our benefits: https://braceyourselfgames.com/careers/benefits/
More info on our stance on overtime: https://braceyourselfgames.com/2021/09/29/our-stance-on-overtime/
We’re looking for the candidate who will make BYG an even better place to work! We will respond to successful applicants with an offer to interview. Thanks very much! We look forward to hearing from you.