Senior Animation Artist - Unpublished R&D Product

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 Senior Animator on this R&D team, you will report to the Art Director and be responsible for all aspects of animation from pre-production through game launch and more. The role is focused on game development and may be required to do all aspects of art production to support prototype and pre-production development. This includes animation of characters, creatures, environment, camera and potentially VFX, and UI work. This position plays a big role in animation style development and as the project moves onto production it shifts towards traditional animation content creation.

Responsibilities:

Create animation assets for highly iterative gameplay prototypes
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
Animate using in-engine animation tools
Push and guide the animation tools in-engine for efficiency and scalability
Review animation with Directors / Creative Lead, provide artistic and technical feedback at all stages of animation.
Provide expertise to our production partners, supervising animation of creatures, characters and objects across projects
Find the best creative and technical solutions, in partnership with the Technical Artists, Character Artists and Concept Artists
Provide animation that fits within the style and pacing of the given scenario

Required Qualifications:

5+ years of professional experience working in animation
5+ years of professional experience working in Maya
Excellent understanding of body mechanics, acting, posing and storytelling techniques.
Understanding of physical motion, weight, balance, texture, form, and all other animation principles.
Experience in the visual exploration of abstract concepts

Desired Qualifications:

Familiarity with Unity, Unreal, or relevant game engine
Strong sense of game design and gameplay
Strong pre-vis and storytelling animation skills
Experience with choreographing full scenes
Holistic understanding of CG pipeline.

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.

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.

(Los Angeles only) This job has a base salary range of $123,000 USD - $171,000 USD + incentive compensation (annual [and long-term]) + equity + 401K with company match + medical, dental, vision, and life insurance + short and long-term disability + open PTO.

It’s our policy to provide equal employment opportunity for all applicants and members of Riot Games, Inc. Riot Games makes reasonable accommodations for handicapped and disabled Rioters and does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, handicap, veteran status, marital status, criminal history, or any other category protected by applicable federal and state law, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance relating to an applicant's criminal history.