Senior Rigging Artist

Reports to:_ Animation Director

As our Senior Rigging Artist, you'll be the main person responsible for skinning and rigging our characters, as well as advising our team on complex rigging challenges. You'll develop tools and work within our game engine to create performant, real-time rigs.

You'll work closely day to day with our Art, Design, and Animation teams to help meet our aesthetic and in-game requirements while working within technological specifications. You will be in regular communication with people in the New Zealand/Australia time zones.

As we close out one major game project and prepare ourselves for future opportunities, you'll have the opportunity to make your mark in the studio, overhauling and refining our technical art processes and getting us ready for the next challenge.

Most of our team work from our Wellington studio, however this role would still suit someone working remotely from outside Wellington and making the occasional studio visit in person to bond with the team.

**This vacancy is only open to people who have the right to work in Australia or Aotearoa New Zealand.** If you are based outside these countries, we would expect you to relocate for the role.

We're open to hiring an independent contractor, but we would ideally love to welcome someone to join our team long-term as a full time employee.

We expect to hold this vacancy open for a while while we look for the right person to join us long term. We'll keep you up to date on where we're at with the process. If you have any questions or are wondering whether you'd be a good fit for the role - please don't be shy and drop us a line

**Main Tasks**
- Be responsible for rigging a wide range of characters and props.
- Work with Technical Director, Animators / Animation Director and Character artists to create performant and fully featured rigs for all kinds of games.
- Develop the rigging workflow, pipeline and key documentation for your team.
- Improve our tools and procedures to make our animation pipeline more efficient. Drive the development of new tools to aid and improve runtime deformations.
- Develop rigs that push the quality of faces, clothing and hair to new heights.
- Balance your improvements alongside the overall needs and timelines of our key projects. Assess the impact of your decisions on other disciplines and communicate your changes to the wider team.
- Research and compare new techniques, approaches and solutions as required.
- Collaborate with the Animation, Modeling and Outsourcing teams to help them turn their art assets into runtime assets.

**Required Qualification/**Experience**

You must have either worked with animators on rigs, or done your own animation.

Some knowledge of the video game industry would be a big advantage.
- Degree in animation, game development or equivalent
- Working knowledge of Unreal Engine 4/5, Maya and other rigging software
- Scripting experience and a good working knowledge of Python and/or Mel
- Familiarity working with motion capture and retargeting
- A firm grasp of anatomy and facial rigging
- Excellent Maya skills

**Skills & Behavioural Competencies**
- **Initiative and autonomy**: If you have an interesting idea, you share it with the team. You take responsibility for your work and are able to work independently. If you see something wrong, you are brave enough to talk about the issue and look for a solution.
- **Clear, consistent and proactive communicator**: You think about what information people need and convey that information clearly, promptly and to the right people. You check to see if people have understood or need additional information. You identify when you need more information to do your job, and you ask for it.
- **Problem solving**: You enjoy experimenting and troubleshooting and have the working knowledge to do this efficiently. You use sound judgement and common sense to get the information you need and make quick, practical decisions.
- **Openness to change**: You want to learn what works, you share ideas, and you're willing to try new things out. You are adaptable and prepared to shift direction after discussion about benefits and risks.
- **Teamwork**: You enjoy sharing your knowledge, mentoring and and supporting others. You get along with all sorts of people and you like comparing perspectives with people from diverse backgrounds.
- **Analysis and planning**: You develop and use systems to organise and keep track of information or work progress. You review and check the accuracy of information. You know how to pick priorities when you have many complex tasks to work on.

**_
A_**_ll applicants must be legally entitled to work in either New Zealand or Australia._**
- If you are currently on a working holiday visa or other short term visa, please let us know - we'll get in touch and talk about your options and how we can support you._