Mid / Senior Gameplay Animator

Job Description

Rockstar Games is seeking a Mid/Senior Gameplay Animator to join their team in Edinburgh, Scotland. The animator will be responsible for devising, implementing, and debugging animation systems and gameplay mechanics, collaborating with animators and programmers to achieve the perfect balance between animation fidelity and gameplay responsiveness. The ideal candidate will have a passion for animation and an interest in building ground-breaking animation systems within a creative and unconstrained environment.

Rockstar North specializes in locomotion for humans and animals, traversal, vehicles, and conversation systems.

What this role involves:

• Working closely with animators and programmers to devise, implement, and debug animation systems and gameplay mechanics.
• Collaborating with the animation, code and design leads, to achieve the perfect balance between animation fidelity and gameplay responsiveness.
• Verifying the quality of the animations integrated into the game by playing regularly.
• Actively contributing to the development and improvement of cutting edge animation techniques and in game systems alongside other animators and coders.
• Contributing to the set-up and maintenance of the animation pipeline, and be proactive with its development and improvement.
• Coordinating efforts of small groups of developers, and provide mentorship, training and guidance under a lead animator.
• Planning motion capture shoots and direct actors/stunt.
• Reviewing the work of other developers, providing constructive criticism.
• Being self-motivated and willing to get involved in wider areas.

Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in Art/Animation or equivalent experience.
• Outstanding demo reel demonstrating experience working with gameplay systems.
• Minimum 3+ years of experience animating video games.
• At least one shipped game.
• Expert level proficiency in a major animation package (eg Maya, Motionbuilder, etc).
• Positive, solution-orientated individual, with a deep-rooted interest in video games, and game development.
• Ability to robustly debug and develop complex animation systems, including blend trees and state machines.
• Exceptional skill in animating the human figure to create realistic character animations.
• Strong understanding of development issues in getting animations into a game.
• Bring innovation and resolution to technical problems and challenges throughout production.
• Experience with setting up production pipelines while being able to follow guidelines.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills and ability to work closely with Artists, Designers and Programmers.

What Rockstar Games offers:

• The opportunity to work on some of the most rewarding, large-scale creative projects in the entertainment industry.
• An inclusive, highly-motivated environment where you can learn and collaborate with some of the most talented people in the industry.
• A full-time, permanent and in-office position based in Rockstar’s state-of-the-art game development studio in Edinburgh, Scotland.