Technical Animation Director

Job Description

Your Platform

Founded in 2002, Infinity Ward is the original studio behind the Call of Duty® franchise. The titles developed by Infinity Ward have won more than 200 ''Game of the Year'' awards and 100 ''Editor's Choice'' awards, among many other industry accolades. Some of our previous titles include: Call of Duty®: Ghosts, Call of Duty®: Infinite Warfare and most recently, Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare.

A critically acclaimed studio, Infinity Ward is proud to have one of the most passionate and talented development teams in the industry. We love to have as much fun as the games we create, and it shows in our relaxed, yet diligent, workplace environment. We believe that making the best games relies on having the best people, so we like to look after ours. We enjoy having fun with top-notch events that everyone gets involved with.

Infinity Ward is wholly owned by Activision. To learn more about our studio, please visit us at https://www.infinityward.com/, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/InfinityWard/, and @InfinityWard on Twitter.

Your Mission

Ever wanted to develop a game pipeline from scratch?

We're looking for someone who can hire and build a team of Riggers and Tool Developers that will create and maintain core tools and rigs that unlock the creativity of our animators, artists, and mocap staff across our Studio Development teams.

As a Technical Animation Director at Activision, you will have the opportunity to do cutting edge, industry leading work. If you are obsessed with efficient tools, elegantly written code, and well-organized working pipelines, then this is an excellent opportunity to work with some of the best development teams in the industry.

Your mission will be to build the next generation of tools and pipelines used throughout our Call of Duty animation teams.

You must be able to thrive in a challenging environment, with an aptitude for critical thinking and analysis, and a deep passion for videogames.

Experience in animation, rigging, and motion capture workflow is a must. A passion for first-person shooter (FPS) games and knowledge of the Call of Duty games is a huge plus.

Responsibilities:
• Develop and manage a centralized animation pipeline team
• Create and develop efficient character/weapon/vehicle/prop rigging and pipeline tools for the development teams
• Work closely with each of the development studios including Animation Directors, Lead Technical Animators, and animation teams to ensure stakeholders are aligned in working to shared needs
• Develop and maintain character facial rigs and tools to support the facial animation pipeline
• Work with the motion capture teams to develop more efficient and effective tools and procedures for capture and delivery of motion capture data
• Work with C++/MEL/Python and other scripting languages to automate the animation rigging and workflow process
• Test tools thoroughly prior to full deployment and ensure that they work properly throughout the production process
• Create online documentation and support materials for existing and new tools, methods, training sessions, processes
• Create, organize, and lead training sessions so all animation team members can fully adopt and use the tools and methods

Requirements:
• Experience developing rigs, systems, and tools for Maya
• Computer Programming/Scripting experience (e.g. C#, C++, MEL, Python, Etc.)
• Experience managing and leading others
• The ability to communicate and collaborate effectively with other disciplines and departments
• Familiarity of game engine requirements and rig parameters for game engines
• Absolute passion for playing and making the industry's best videogames

Portfolio:
• Reel demonstrating tools and character rigs
* Only submittals with Cover Letters will be considered – we want the best, so tell us why that's you! *

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-gk3bz4-3-145-60-166-42 in your application.