Principal Animation Artist - Unpublished R&D Product

Job Description

As a member of the Animation team, you bring champions to life through classic animation principles and body mechanics. You will create high quality animations for a diverse and rapidly growing universe, including bipeds, quadrupeds, and creatures. A great reel will showcase a variety of walk cycles, a diverse selection of game-related animation, and a strong foundation in the principles of animation, including weight, anticipation, and impact. Also working to expand our current content pipeline, you will collaborate with designers and artists to develop new features and technologies. Your craft expertise will breathe life into iconic and beloved characters for players.

As a Principal Animation Artist on the Research & Development (R&D) team, you will be responsible for all aspects of animation prototype development. The role is focused on game development and may be required to do all aspects of art production to support prototype development. This includes animation and potentially rigging and modeling. As projects move into pre-production the role shifts towards animation style development and then towards traditional animation content creation.

Responsibilities:

• Create animation assets for highly iterative gameplay prototypes
• Work autonomously on multiple projects with various leads and subject matter
• Generate prototype VFX that communicates gameplay mechanics
• Recognize areas of opportunity for animation to enhance gameplay
• Meet project deadlines in a timely manner without compromising artistic integrity
• Consistently communicate with the team by giving and receiving feedback, directing next steps, and providing clear goals and outcomes to your team

Required Qualifications:

• 8+ years of professional experience working in animation
• 5+ years of professional experience working in Maya
• 3+ years of experience working directly in Unreal Engine with experience implementing characters in (a 3rd person action game)

Desired Qualifications:

• Strong sense of game design and gameplay
• Strong pre-vis and storytelling animation skills

As a part of the application process, you will be expected to provide a portfolio or demo reel of their work and may be asked to complete an art test.

For this role, you'll find success through craft expertise and a collaborative spirit that prioritizes the delight of players. We will look at your past studies and experience, but for this role, we also look for dedicated people with a personal relationship with games. If you embody player empathy and care about players' experiences, this is the role for you!

Our Perks:

Riot has a focus on work/life balance, shown by our open paid time off policy, in addition to other perks such as flexible work schedules. We offer medical, dental, and life insurance, parental leave for you, your spouse/domestic partner and children, and a 401k with company match. Check out our benefits pages for more information.

Riot Games fosters a player and workplace experience that values teamwork embodied by the Summoner's Code and Community Code. Our culture embraces differences as a strength, and our values are the guiding principles for how we approach work. We are committed to putting diversity and inclusion (D&I) at the center of everything we do, and promoting a fair and collaborative culture where Rioters treat one another with dignity and respect. We encourage you to read more about our value of thriving together and our ongoing work to build the most inclusive company in Gaming.