Lead Technical Animator

Lead Technical Animator

The Gearbox Entertainment Company is an award-winning creator and distributor of entertainment for people around the world. Gearbox Entertainment develops and publishes products through its subsidiaries Gearbox Software and Gearbox Publishing. Gearbox Entertainment has become widely known for successful game franchises including Brothers in Arms and Borderlands as well as acquired properties Duke Nukem andHomeworld. Gearboxs ambition is to entertain the world and its key driving objectives include the pursuit of happiness for our talent partners and customers the prioritization of entertainment and creativity and a measured respect for profitability. For more information visit.

Gearbox Software is looking for a technically minded Lead Technical Animator with a passion for pushing character animation fidelity in games to new levels. This role primarily focuses on managing a team in charge of developing new animation features in engine and providing ongoing support for current tech and working to create improved pipeline and planning practices with animation to improve overall content efficiency.

Responsibilities:

• Manage a team of Technical Animators setting goals for the team providing feedback and support their career development.

• Work with code and design department leads to establish specific technical parameters for each project to ensure the highest level of productivity for animation

• Mentor mid-level and junior animators in improving their technical animation skills through providing classes and workshops

• Create & maintain animation blueprints / state machines / character data

• Tune blending for gameplay animations.

• Break-down and document design features into easy to animate content.

• Work with Designers andAnimators to maintain/monitor best practices and optimal workflows.

• Support animation content implementation with other departments including Missions Systems and Gameplay teams.

• Research & prototype new animation systems for use by Animation and Design teams.

• Communicate and work closely with Gameplay andEngineProgrammers to develop new features neededto deliverhighly polished sophisticated presentations.

• Document system functionality and breakdowns for use by future employees or other teams.

• Identify potential pipeline improvements and act to improve them.

Qualifications:

• Previous experience as a manager

• Familiarity with animation systems including blending warping layering synched choreography and state machines.

• A strong understanding of logic technical architectureand experience with one or more scriptinglanguages.

• Needs to be familiar with animation pipelines from mesh to implementation of final assets.

• Able to collaborate and work well with teams from various disciplines.

• Ability to own a feature from pitch and documentation to prototype and final implementation.

• Should be comfortable working in documentation and production platforms such as Jira or Confluence.

• A positive attitude and an ability to receive and provide objective feedback on areas of game feel and presentation.

• 5 Years as a Game Designer Animator or Programmer with at least 3 years previous experience working in a relevant area that pertainstocharacter animation.

Bonus Points For:

• Experience in Unreal 5 Animation Systems

• Programming Capability in Python MEL or C

• Experience in Maya and Motion Builder Animation Systems

• Experience with mocap systems and software such as Vicon Blade

• Strong balance of creative/visual aesthetics and technical skills.

• An avidfan offast-paced action gameswithan eye towards what other studios are doing to elevate thepresentationand feel of their games.

• Experience with advanced animation systems such as Motion Matching or Distance Matching.

Gearbox Entertainment believes that all team members should be able to enjoy a work environment free from all forms of discrimination and harassment. We are committed to reflecting the diversity of the world we strive to entertain. As an Equal Opportunity Employer we provide fair and equal treatment to all team members and applicants. We do not discriminateon the basis ofrace color religion sex sexual orientation gender identity or expression national origin disability genetic information pregnancy or maternity veteran status or any other status protected by applicable national federal state or local law.

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