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Kinetic Games is a new video game development studio based in Southampton. We are a passionate team of developers using Unity to improve and expand the horror experience of Phasmophobia, available on Steam, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
About the Role:
We are seeking a highly skilled Senior Technical Animator to join our team. In this role, you will be responsible for bringing characters, creatures, and environmental elements to life through high-quality, efficient animation systems. You will collaborate with artists, designers, and programmers to develop rigs, create fluid animation workflows, and implement animations into Unity. Your technical expertise will ensure animations look great, are responsive, and perform well across multiple platforms.
Responsibilities:
1. Design, create, and maintain complex rigs for characters, creatures, cameras, and objects that are efficient, flexible, and user-friendly.
2. Implement and maintain animation systems and state machines within Unity, ensuring smooth in-game animations.
3. Develop tools to improve animation pipelines and workflows.
4. Collaborate with artists and programmers to troubleshoot rigging, skinning, and implementation challenges.
5. Work with the programming team to refine the animation pipeline and runtime systems.
6. Optimize animations for performance on PC, VR, PSVR2, and consoles.
7. Ensure animations meet standards for gameplay responsiveness and visual fidelity.
Requirements:
1. Experience as a Technical Animator or similar role on at least one shipped Unity title.
2. Expertise in rigging, skinning, and creating animation control systems in 3D software (e.g., Blender, Maya).
3. Strong experience with Unity animation systems, including Animator Controllers, State Machines, and Blend Trees.
4. Proficiency in C# and tool development.
5. Understanding of real-time animation principles, constraints, IK systems, and retargeting.
6. Strong problem-solving skills, balancing visual quality and performance.
7. Excellent communication and collaboration skills.
8. Ability to work independently in a fast-paced environment.
9. Passion for horror games and familiarity with Phasmophobia.
10. Eligibility to work in the UK.
Nice to Have:
* Experience with VR animation challenges, especially hand and body tracking.
* Knowledge of motion matching, procedural, or physics-based animation systems.
* Experience with Unity DOTS or animation optimization techniques.
* Familiarity with facial animation and lip-sync pipelines.
* Experience with version control systems like Git, Perforce, or Plastic.
* Additional benefits include a 5% employer match pension scheme, flexitime, travel opportunities to industry events (GDC, Gamescom, Twitch Con, EGX, Develop Brighton), relocation package, annual bonus, employee vouchers, wellbeing allowance, referral scheme, sabbatical leave, health insurance, life insurance, and 30 days holiday including birthday and wellbeing days.
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