Technical Animation Director

Requisition Number: 156806

Position Title: Technical Art Director

External Description:

Technical Animation Director

Electronic Arts Inc. is a leading global interactive entertainment software company. EA delivers games, content and online services for Internet-connected consoles, personal computers, mobile phones and tablets.

Creativity, Collaboration, and Communication are what make Maxis tick as we prepare ourselves for massive amounts of growth and an incredible amount of fun. We want to engage our players and create the most entertaining titles in the world. Come and see for yourself, the future is here.

At Maxis we’re pushing the boundaries on every front, so you’ll get a chance to stretch beyond your comfort zone and have the ability to learn while you contribute. Our team culture is collaborative and high-performance oriented. We expect everyone to think like game makers and approach development with a Player First perspective.

Job Summary

The ideal candidate for a Technical Animation Director has the skills to effectively communicate and collaborate with multiple disciplines. This includes but is not exclusive to, Animation Directors, Animation Leads, Technical Artists, and Engineers across the Division. The model applicant is passionate about finding efficiencies, exploring new technologies, implementing new tools, and identifying solutions for current and future game development for both existing and new IPs.

 

 Responsibilities and Duties

• Collaborate Closely with the Animation Director, Art Director, Engineers, Character Leads and Animation Leads to deliver tools, rigs and implementation with a forward-looking goal of delivering industry leading animation.
• Train, inspire and develop technical animators and tech artists in their growth while providing constructive feedback.
• Aid in developing, updating, improving and maintaining a technical pipeline for the Animation and Tech teams.
• Assist and guide in the creation of rigs, best practices and development tools requirements needed to obtain the highest aesthetic quality value.
• Keep up with the latest trends and technical tools for animation content development.
• Create prototypes and pursue research in varying engines for best fits on a variety of products while planning for future technologies in projects pertaining to Animation Tech.
• Firefight production issues, investigating hot issues and resolving roadblocks.
• Understanding of performance and optimization requirements and experience diagnosing and profiling content costs.

 

Qualifications and Skills

• Strong knowledge of the latest trends, technologies and tools for creating cutting edge animation visuals.
• Experience working in real-time engines such as Unity and Unreal Game Engine (additional experience in other engines is a plus)
• Ability to Communicate effectively across multiple disciplines, give clear direction and share your vision on tools and development of tech.
• Expert proficiency with Maya.
• Must be skillful at rigging and writing tools to aid animators
• Ability to juggle multiple projects simultaneously, work against a deadline, and agility to manage constant change.
• Ability to lead a team of Tech Artists/Animators while working with managers of various disciplines.
• Experience in optimizing animation pipelines.
• Passion, energy, enthusiasm, charisma and the ability to inspire.
• Knowledge traditional, mocap and procedural animation workflows.
• Ability to create solid documentation and training material.
• Has experience driving Tech to achieve the required aesthetic vision.
• Experience with designing animation content that integrates well with/responds fluidly to dynamic systems like character and world physics
• Experience with aggressive animation retargeting solutions (offline and in-engine) a plus
• Experience building custom deformers and blend shape solutions (experience with principal component analysis a plus).

Education / Experience

• Minimum of 7+ years of tech art/animation development experience in Maya and video games.
• Must have served as a Tech Anim Senior, Tech Anim Lead or Tech Anim Director on a published or soon to be published video game project.
• In depth experience with creating and maintaining high end character rigs.
• Proficient in Python & Mel (C# and other languages a plus.)
• Experience in Perforce
• Experience with version control software (Perforce preferred).
• Well versed in Shotgun, Jira or other bug tracking and project management software.
• Must have excellent communication and collaborative skills, coordinating and working with multiple departments to achieve set goals.
• Willingness to accept direction and redo/iterate work until it satisfies quality.

 

 

 

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Community / Marketing Title: Technical Animation Director

Company Profile:

We are a global team of creators, storytellers, technologists, experience originators, innovators and so much more. We believe amazing games and experiences start with teams as diverse as the players and communities we serve. At Electronic Arts, the only limit is your imagination.

EEOText:

About Electronic Arts

Everything we do is designed to inspire the world to play. Through our cutting-edge games, innovative services, and powerful technologies, we bring worlds with infinite possibilities to millions of players and fans around the globe.

We’re looking for collaborative and inclusive people with diverse perspectives who will enrich our culture and challenge us. We take a holistic approach with our benefits program, focusing on physical, emotional, financial, career, and community wellness to support our people through every chapter of life. We provide comprehensive benefit packages and support for a balanced life with paid time off and new parent leave, plus free games and so much more. Our goal is to provide a safe and respectful workplace that empowers you to thrive in both work and life.

Electronic Arts is an equal opportunity employer. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, genetic information, religion, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, marital status, family status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We will also consider employment qualified applicants with criminal records in accordance with applicable law. EA also makes workplace accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities as required by applicable law.

Days Open: 70

Can this position be remote?:

EEO Employer Verbiage:

About Electronic Arts

Everything we do is designed to inspire the world to play. Through our cutting-edge games, innovative services, and powerful technologies, we bring worlds with infinite possibilities to millions of players and fans around the globe.

We’re looking for collaborative and inclusive people with diverse perspectives who will enrich our culture and challenge us. We take a holistic approach with our benefits program, focusing on physical, emotional, financial, career, and community wellness to support our people through every chapter of life. We provide comprehensive benefit packages and support for a balanced life with paid time off and new parent leave, plus free games and so much more. Our goal is to provide a safe and respectful workplace that empowers you to thrive in both work and life.

Electronic Arts is an equal opportunity employer. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, genetic information, religion, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, marital status, family status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We will also consider employment qualified applicants with criminal records in accordance with applicable law. EA also makes workplace accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities as required by applicable law.