Studio: Third Kind Games
Job Opening: Senior Animation Programmer
Location: Leamington Spa, UK
Type: Full-Time
Responsibilities:
- Working with a highly experienced team on all areas of the game’s animation systems, both client and server.
- Fully owning complex animation systems through design and development, working closely with the game designers, animators, and other disciplines to realize their visions.
- Leading the technical architecture and design of key animation systems, ensuring scalability, performance, and maintainability.
- Optimizing animation systems and assets for real-time performance across multiple platforms, including consoles and PCs.
- Conducting regular code reviews to ensure code quality and adherence to industry best practices, especially in the context of animation programming.
- Taking an active role in mentoring and developing junior staff.
- Collaborating closely with animators, riggers, and technical artists to develop and refine animation pipelines and workflows.
- Using your passion for gaming to design, plan, and develop high-quality animation code systems, working closely with the game designers and other disciplines to realize their visions.
- Demonstrating good communication skills with the ability to contribute to Scrum meetings and create innovative solutions for our games.
- Driving innovation by identifying and solving complex technical challenges within the animation development process.
Qualifications & Skills:
- 5+ years of industry experience, with a focus on animation systems.
- Extensive experience with Unreal Engine, particularly with its animation systems such as Animation Blueprints, Sequencer, and Control Rig.
- Several years of experience with C++ or C#.
- Strong understanding of cross-platform animation systems, with the ability to adapt and integrate animations within different engines and pipelines.
- Experience in developing custom tools and plugins for animation within Unreal Engine or other engines.
- Proven debugging and critical analysis skills, especially in animation contexts.
- Experience with:
- Motion capture data integration, facial animation systems, and keyframe animation techniques.
- Other animation systems or engines (e.g., Maya, MotionBuilder, Unity), and the ability to integrate these into existing pipelines.
- Modern console development.
