Senior Cinematic Animator

Job Description

Job Title:
Senior Cinematic Animator

Requisition ID:
R005216

As a Senior Cinematic Animator on the Narrative Visual Team you will be working with other totally ''normal'' Animators, Designers, Engineers, and Producers to bring AAA franchises to life. Interested? Then keep reading…

As a game studio that's been around for 3 decades, Vicarious Visions has a vibrantly colorful and prestigiously successful past of guitar-playing, pro-skating, and Wumpa fruit-hoarding. As a new member of the Blizzard family, we also have an exhilarating future ahead of us. We are more excited than ever to join in the making of Blizzard franchises that are known and treasured around the world.

Our studio, located in beautiful upstate New York, provides developers a safe, warm environment to hone their skills and become leaders of their craft. Creativity and  innovation are cornerstones of our practice, and we nurture new ideas from all of our people. Crucially, we are a family of uniquely individual voices, and we have fostered a culture of diversity and inclusivity. We thrive on collaboration, respect, and fun. Join us!

The Cinematic Team is focused on much more than traditional cutscenes. We are constantly challenging ourselves to analyze every aspect of video game content in order to push cinematic quality wherever we can. As a member of our group we encourage new ideas for telling visually focused stories within this constantly evolving, interactive medium.

Vicarious Visions is wholly owned by Activision Blizzard. To learn more about our studio, please visit us at www.vvisions.com and @VvisionsStudio on Twitter

You will be Responsible for:
• Work closely with the Animation Leads and Directors developing, defining and maintaining high-end cinematic animations.
• Learning and contributing to growing our process and pipelines with little oversight
• Editing MoCap data to craft detailed character animations.
• Creating high quality hand-keyed animations through solid body mechanics and engaging performances.
• Ability to help animate in many areas of game development.
• Be a part of preparing and participating in motion capture shoots
• Understanding of cinematics and story
• Participate in peer reviews, giving and receiving team feedback.
• Interdisciplinary communication skills. The non-technical term is being able to work with individuals outside of your team to get your art working in-engine
• Generating and presenting ideas for Artist development within your department
• Understanding Scope and Risk as it relates to the work you are involved in
• Working with Leads to present ideas on how to best advance your career path

The skills & experience we're looking for in order to help level up your team:
• Must show the ability to animate with high quality timing, weight, and lip sync
• Good instincts for realistic and stylized motions
• Task driven, self-motivated & proactive
• Proactive in creating solutions and solving problems
• Adapt and Agile to changing requirements that come up in game development
• Must have a positive attitude and be a team player
• Experience animating in Maya or another 3D program
• Experience working in game engines
• Provide Samples of your animation online with a clear explanation of what you did

You'll really get noticed with these upgrades:
• Experience as a lead or in leadership roles.
• Experience managing small teams of animators and helping drive quality.
• Passion for Film and Video Games
• Experience in Pre-vis
• Motion Capture Experience
• Work with facial animation
• Technical Skills: character modeling, rigging and scripting
Our studio is located in Albany, NY, a thriving northeastern city with an abundance of professional theatre, music, dance, and sports attractions, as well as a backyard full of recreational activities. (That's a metaphorical backyard. The studio's backyard has a patio and grill though…with seasonal awning.) And for those looking for more adventures, we're located less than three hours from NYC, Boston, and Montreal!

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-gq6zzm-3-139-236-89-42 in your application.