This job listing expired on Dec 7, 2022
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For over 30 years, Naughty Dog has been crafting best-selling, critically acclaimed games that constantly push the boundaries of narrative, gameplay, and technology. Our most recent game, The Last of Us Part II, has received over 300 Game of the Year awards and three of our games are among the top 10 highest scored games on the PlayStation 4. As a part of the Naughty Dog legacy, you’ll become a part of continuing the development of extraordinary and enduring experiences for a broad, global range of audiences.

The environmental foreground team is responsible for the creation, rigging, and support of all environment related animating objects in the game. This includes dynamic simulations and interactions with level (background) geometry.

Most foreground artists are versatile Maya generalists, but also have specializations in different areas that fall under the team’s realm of responsibilities. Some foreground artists are technical or rigging specialists, others are modelers and texture artists, and some specialize in dynamic set-ups. Through this diversity of specializations, the team supports each other in different ways, actively distributing and sharing the overall workload.

Responsibilities:

  • Work with geometry provided from another source (such as the environment team, or outsource)
  • Create intuitive, animator-friendly animation rigs for environment related props
  • Set-up of real-time destructibles and bumpables using Havok, including breaking up the meshes, creation of an appropriate rig and collision geometry, generating/repairing UVs, and implementation and testing in-game
  • For pre-simulated effects - breaking up provided geometry, rigging, and running a dynamic simulation in Maya or Houdini
  • Cloth and rope animations - using real-time dynamics in-game, Maya, or Marvelous Designer, depending on the situation

Requirements & Skills:

  • Industry experience, having shipped at least two AAA titles
  • Solid foundation and experience with Maya modeling and texturing tools and pipeline
  • Solid foundation with Maya rigging tools
  • Good communication skills and a great attitude for interfacing and collaborating effectively with all other disciplines
  • Ability to stay organized and prioritize tasks according to their urgency
  • Must be able to provide a demo reel or examples of professional work (online preferred), a breakdown of your contributions to the shots, and an accompanying resume

Bonus Skills:

  • Substance Painter experience
  • Houdini experience
  • Experience writing Maya Python scripts and tools