As a Technical Director, your role is to own the technical aspects of Animation production, including ensuring that we use the best techniques and practices available, while meeting delivery requirements.

These Are Some Of The Key Areas On Which You Have a Direct Influence To Help Make This Game a Success

Offering Animation solutions and innovations that create value for the consumer
Quality, stability, scalability and improvement of Animation production pipeline
Rapidity of iteration for the content creation team
Management of the Animation performance to ensure frame rate targets
Mentoring and growing TD Animation expertise in the studio

Functional

Act as the technical reference for Animation, including tools, methods, etc. to realize animation of the game.
Representing Animation needs and requirements to engineers implementing systems.
Accountability for Animation budgets (performance and memory) and help animators realize the best quality while fitting in budgets in the worst case.
Help develop and push a roadmap/vision along with rendering/tools/etc and establish short/mid/long-term priorities.
Test Animation tools before deployment and make sure they function correctly throughout production.
Anticipating and detecting potential issues or negative interactions between systems and workflows.
Produce and maintain documentation using Confluence on tools, methods, trainings, processes, and engine limits for consultation and future reference.

Pipeline

Help guide and build pipelines for Animation creation based on best practices, take ownership of important or risky modifications to the pipeline.
Technical planning and coordination of the animation pipeline.
Evaluate Ubisoft’s existing engines in order to identify product strengths and weaknesses and recommend those that meet our needs

Collaboration

Foster inter-team coordination. Help coordinate communication between Animation/Core Tech/TDs groups and achieve consensus for the requirements necessary to ship a high quality title. Help make a group a team.
Coordinate and act as liaison between the animation team and programming team. Use Jira to track and manage with programmers needed improvements and bugs fixes.
Establish an open communication canal with your peers on the project, particularly with other Technical Directors but also with artists, and leads.

Mentoring

Coaching and mentoring TD Animators/TD Characters with best development practices and technical constraints.

Project/Studio

Work closely with HR recruitment and producers to identify, hire and grow promising candidates in your area of expertise.
Researching, initiating and implementing strategic technical changes for the project.
Reach out to other collaboration / knowledge sharing from/to other relevant teams (e.g. Pioneer, Silex, FC, Hero, etc.) or events (e.g. UDC)

Requirements

Vast work experience in animation, rigging or programming field, including at least 3 years as a Technical Animation Director / integration of game animation system or equivalent;
In-depth knowledge of game engines (e.g. Unity or Unreal) & 3D software (3DS Max, MotionBuilder and Houdini) & understanding of scripting languages (e.g. C#, Python, MaxScript), motion capture, and animation state machines;
Excellent communication, interpersonal, mentorship, time management, organizational, and presentation skills;
A highly innovative, collaborative, attentive, and solution-oriented spirit;
Critical thinking, curiosity, resourcefulness, and plenty of flexibility
A passion for sharing your knowledge and helping others learn and grow.

Desired Skills and Experience

3D Animation, Animation, Animation Direction, Character Animation, Computer Animation, Content Creation, Creature Animation, Facial Animation, Management, Pipeline Development, Pipeline Management, Production, Python, Traditional Animation, Video Game Design, Video Game Development, Video Game Production, Video Games, Performance, technical aspects