Requisition Number: 178020
Position Title: Senior Animator 2
External Description:
Founded in 2010 by the original creators of the Call of Duty Franchise, Respawn was created with the philosophy that when experienced people have creative freedom, they’ll make extraordinary games that achieve the unexpected. From our roots as an indie studio to joining the roster of studios at Electronic Arts, this remains our guiding principle. We love what we do and want to share our passion with players worldwide. Our shipped titles include critically acclaimed multi-platform games Apex Legends, Titanfall, Titanfall 2, Star Wars™ Jedi: Fallen Order and Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond. Join us for the opportunity to create groundbreaking games with some of the best developer talent in the industry.
You can learn more about our studio and values at respawn.com/studio.
We are looking for an experienced and experienced Lead Animator to join the Apex Legends animation team at our Vancouver location. We are picturing someone who is passionate about making games in a collaborative environment, with a team of experienced developers. You will help to establish and realize an immersive experience through remarkable animations and gameplay.
What you’ll do…
- Work with the Animation Director to establish the direction and steer all character related animation goals.
- Hold regular reviews with the Character-focused animation team, guiding the animators to ensure that their animation reaches the high-quality bar of Apex Legends
- Work with the Narrative, Design and Art teams to help establish the personalities and fantasies of our Legends
- Communicate and provide guidance to the animation team that ensures that our characters stay true to their personality and fantasy.
- Help create high quality, believable animation content for APEX that both looks and feels amazing!
- Help to facilitate mocap shoots and contribute to the whole process, from initial organization > through to organizing and distributing the data to the character-focused animation team.
- Work with Designers to ensure that we achieve responsive, immersive gameplay that feels rewarding to our players.
- Work with the animators across Vancouver and LA to push our quality, share knowledge and inspire creativity.
- Help to enhance communication across all relevant disciplines (production, design, art, audio, and VFX) throughout the development of your responsibilities.
- Work together with Artists and Riggers to establish both core and secondary functionality of our characters, weapons and abilities.
- Assess our processes and pipelines with a view to improving efficiency across the animation teams.
- Assess and evolve the experience of playing Apex Legends.
You will have…
- 5+ years of professional game development experience.
- Experience leading sizeable animation teams, with evidence of released content that you have driven.
- An advanced understanding of video game animation development.
- A high level of proficiency with Maya (and Motion Builder.)
- Experience establishing/creating characters from the ground up and able to demonstrate examples of character performances that embody ‘who they are.’
- An advanced understanding of motion editing (re-posing, re-timing and plusing mocap data.)
- Experience animating cameras, together with an understanding of cinematography – especially with action sequences.
- Experience working with other domains – especially Designers, Narrative teams, Engineers and Artists.
- Take pride and responsibility for the continued success of Apex Legends.
What’s it like to be an Animator at Respawn?
Feel – Our studio puts a big emphasis on fun gameplay. We want responsive, immersive gameplay that just feels right. Our animators contribute directly to this effort through their high quality, believable animations. They work with game designers to help make gameplay aspects such as combat and traversal look and FEEL amazing.
Inspiration – Our animators inspire the team and each other. We have regular show-and-tells and seeing animators take things to the next level with their great work energizes everyone. The animation team is constantly working to evolve our animations to raise the industry bar.
Resources – We have our own mocap stage and Xsens suits for quick prototypes. Our animation team members are directly involved in seeing their vision through on the stage. Our animators can throw on the suit themselves and act out their ideas, or they can work with actors to get the data they need. You can see how our team uses mocap in this video (which features one of our Lead Animators, Shawn Wilson, acting in many of the shots) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zl07Zgy6tA&feature=youtu.be
Values – Our animation teams are aligned on their values. They share their inspiration, knowledge, and passion with the others in their department. They aspire to treat everything they work on as a personal masterpiece. They put their time and passion into what will have the biggest payoff for players. Our leads also make a lot of effort to ensure that the animators work on assignments they are excited about.
Ownership – Our teams are small and everyone has a lot of ownership over their work. While reporting to our Lead Animator, our animators take their work from conceptualization to shipping. As part of a small team you will shine here.
What do we look for in Animator candidates?
Hand Keyed Animations – We look for accomplished keyframe animators. Although we do use mocap as a powerful tool, our animators will often hand key their work from scratch or use keyframes to improve or add their own personal flair to mocap data.
Realism/Believability – Our work tends to be realistic as opposed to stylized. We love seeing realistic, keyframed human motion in reels. That’s the best way for us to understand how well you could deliver similar work here. If your reel contains stylized animations, we look for the same signs of quality such as believability, polish, and impressive acting.
Passion – We look for animators who are passionate. Our animation team is constantly sharing inspiration and working to raise the quality bar. No one is phoning it in here – our team loves what they do and it shows in their work.
Potential Over Experience – We value talent over years of experience. Experience counts, but potential is important too. We look for motivated developers with a eye for quality.
Team player – Positivity and help to fuel greatness. The ability to accept feedback and critiques will help you tailor your work towards what’s best for the game. Making games is a group effort and you will work with other departments such as design, vfx, audio, engineering, and art. Teamwork is very important to our success.
If this opportunity sounds like a great fit for you, please submit your resume and we will get back to you once we have reviewed.
In addition to opportunities for creative impact and professional growth which come with being a member of our team, working at Respawn has many other perks and benefits! Learn more at respawn.com/perks.
US COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS
The base salary ranges listed below are for the defined geographic market pay zones in these states. If you reside outside of these locations, a recruiter will advise on the base salary range and benefits for your specific location.
EA has listed the base salary ranges it in good faith expects to pay applicants for this role in the locations listed, as of the time of this posting. Salary offered will be determined based on numerous relevant business and candidate factors including, for example, education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, and business or organizational needs.
BASE SALARY RANGES
• California (depending on location e.g. Los Angeles vs. Sacramento):
° $131,600 – $213,300
• New York (depending on location e.g. Manhattan vs. Buffalo):
° $131,600 – $213,300
• Washington (depending on location e.g. Seattle vs. Spokane):
° $131,600 – $195,200
• Jersey City, NJ :
° $154,800 – $213,300
• Colorado (depending on location e.g. Denver vs. Colorado Springs):
° $131,600 – $179,600
Base salary is just one part of the overall compensation at EA. We also offer a package of benefits including paid time off (3 weeks per year to start), 80 hours per year of sick time, 16 paid company holidays per year, 10 weeks paid time off to bond with baby (following 1 year of service), medical/dental/vision insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, and 401(k) to regular full-time employees. Certain roles may also be eligible for bonus and equity.
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Community / Marketing Title: Lead Animator (Apex Legends)
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. 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: 29
Can this position be remote?: 1
EEO Employer Verbiage:
About Electronic Arts
We exist to inspire the world to play. Through innovative technology and immersive storytelling, we deliver new ways of experiencing worlds of interactive entertainment for our millions of players worldwide. Our strength lies in the diversity of our people, combining creativity, innovation and passion. We fully champion inclusive culture, and provide opportunities for growing, learning, and leading that allows for the most impactful and rewarding work of our teams’ careers.
We put our people first, and we make sure they’re taken care of both in and out of the office. As we reflect on our learnings and successes from remote work, we aim to provide dynamic, collaborative and flexible work environments for our teams. Our employees connect through our Employee Resource Groups, which are actively involved in driving business decisions every step of the way. But our support doesn’t end at the workplace-we also encourage a balanced lifestyle with paid time off and new parent leave, free video games, fitness reimbursement and more.
Our goal is to provide a safe, respectful and inspiring workplace for all of our employees. Through our diversity, equity, inclusion and social responsibility programs, we’re doing the work to give everyone the space to be their full selves while giving back to our community. We’re looking for problem-solvers, game-changers, innovators, dreamers, doers-people that are ready to move the needle and build on our success. As our industry accelerates, we aren’t just keeping up-we’re staying ahead of the game.
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. Electronic Arts also makes workplace accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities as required by applicable law.