As a Principal Animator, you will have a strong understanding of animation principles and be able to use a range of techniques to drive high quality visuals and bring characters to life. You will balance delivering results with driving the animation guidelines and mentoring your fellow animators. You will motivate and guide others to excellence, acting as a role model for organizational, technical, and creative skills, whilst showing others ‘what good looks like’.
You will confidently and respectfully challenge the status quo in order to improve things. Assertive when needed, you voice concerns, generate ideas for improvements, and stay on the cutting edge of animation technology and technique. Confident in your decision making, you nevertheless think carefully before you speak and act.
JOB PURPOSE
The Principal Animator is a highly skilled individual with excellent animation judgment and organizational skills. They are able to deliver the highest standard animation and effectively guide others to do the same. They are excellent at communicating both up and down, estimating and costing work, and mentoring staff.
They are proactive, organized and methodical. They provide critical support to the project with a deep understanding of process, pipeline and platform requirements. They communicate between disciplines, proactively solving problems and fostering good relationships across the wider game team and studio
The Principal Animator will be a skilled, flexible team player that effectively time manages themselves to deliver the results required by the Game Art Director to specification, quality and on time.
Principal Animators work closely with the Game Art Director to set the quality bar and style for animations and to document any style guides or production processes in support of that goal. They will be expected to be able to perform the production duties of their specialism at a Senior Level, setting the animation style and quality bar for a team. They help mentor, inspire, and motivate their team.
Reports to: Game Art Director
KEY ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Produce expert quality animation and work with the Art Director to create and document the animation style for the project.
- Demonstrate excellent planning and task scheduling, to deliver animation to required quality, specification and time.
- Coach and mentor team members to develop professional skills including soft skills.
- Demonstrate expert understanding of how animation supports gameplay and narrative with the ability to communicate these links to the team.
- Demonstrate expert level proficiency in 3D animation software (e.g. Maya, MotionBuilder, Unity 3D).
- Plan, deliver, document and adjust/improve, complex animation motion graphs, to produce fluid in-game animation.
ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS:
- Evidences expert level skills and judgments.
- Direct experience of all stages of game development on multiple projects, enabling sound, strategic judgements and providing excellent advice across the team.
- Proven experience of planning and managing delivery within the discipline.
- Proven experience of elevating team's morale and supporting other artists where needed.
- Proven ability to work on business level tasks, e.g. cross discipline pipeline development.
- Previous experience in mentoring junior animators and other members of a team in order to promote team growth.
- Excellent showreel.
- Technical experience skinning and rigging characters (Maya)
- Experience working on business level tasks, e.g. cross discipline pipeline development.
***Please include link to portfolio with application to be considered***
What we offer you:
- Zynga Stock RSUs and Bonus Plan
- Full medical, dental, vision benefits as well as life insurance
- Catered lunch daily
- Generous Paid Maternity/Paternity leave
- Open vacation policy for many employees
- Flexible working hours on many teams
- Casual dress every single day
- Work with cool people!
Zynga is an equal opportunity employer. We are proud of our diverse community; we do not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, medical condition, disability, or any other class or characteristic protected by applicable law. We welcome candidates, players, employees, and partners from all backgrounds. Join us!
Zynga will consider for employment all qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law.
Zynga is committed to providing reasonable accommodation to applicants with disabilities. If you need an accommodation during the interview process, please let us know.
