Hidden Leaf Games is an indie game development studio founded with the mission of delivering a world-class experience that focuses on competition, progression and social play. We believe games are meant to be played together, regardless of skill level or platform. At our core, we’re players who deeply value the social and community interactions that competitive moments have to offer. We believe that competitive games create lasting moments and are committed to recreating that experience for others to enjoy. We are looking for a Senior Animator to join our Animation team to help deliver amazing and powerful animations that will charm players over. The Senior Animator will work closely with the Game Feel team to make sure that the punchy visuals stand out and help provide visual clarity to the players.

Responsibilities:

Work directly with our Art Director and the Animation team to create high-quality animation in a fun and unique style
Create high quality humanoid and (sometimes) creature animation with complex body mechanics and combat focused anims
Work closely with our art department, modeling and personalization teams to support the look and vision of the art style and help direct the creation of skins
Work closely with our design and programming departments to ensure proper integration and support gameplay needs including creating proxy anims for quick design prototyping
Collaborate with others on improving the overall look and style of the movement, gameplay, and character designs and rigs
Create and maintain character rigs of heroes, mounts, skins, environmental props, etc. using auto rigging scripts in Maya, or have hands-on knowledge of the rigging pipeline in Maya

Required Qualifications:

At least 4-5+ years of animation experience
Advanced knowledge in body mechanics, combat animation, movement, and principles of animation
Knowledge in character and prop rigging, skinning, tool creation and use
Knowledge and experience with art and animation workflow, pipelines, and tools
Experience using game engines to setup characters and animations
Self-motivated drive to help continue to develop and support new tools and more efficient workflows and animation style.

Desired Qualifications:

Knowledge of Unreal (Blueprints, EventGraphs, AnimGraphs, State Machines, Retargeting)
Cross disciplinary skills in game development
Illustration experience is a plus