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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 closely with artists, designers, and programmers to develop robust rigs, create fluid animation workflows, and implement animations into Unity. Your expertise will ensure animations are visually impressive, responsive, and performant across multiple platforms.
Responsibilities:
* Design, create, and maintain complex rigs for characters, creatures, cameras, and objects that are efficient, flexible, and user-friendly.
* Implement and maintain animation systems and state machines within Unity to ensure smooth in-game animations.
* Develop tools to streamline animation pipelines and workflows.
* Collaborate with artists and programmers to troubleshoot rigging, skinning, and implementation challenges.
* Work with the programming team to define and improve animation pipelines and runtime systems.
* Optimize animations for performance on PC, VR, PSVR2, and consoles.
* Ensure animations meet technical standards for gameplay responsiveness and visual fidelity.
Requirements:
* Professional experience as a Technical Animator or similar role on at least one shipped Unity title.
* Expertise in rigging, skinning, and creating animation control systems using 3D software such as Blender or Maya.
* Strong experience implementing animation systems in Unity, including Animator Controllers, State Machines, and Blend Trees.
* Proficiency in C# and tool development.
* Solid understanding of real-time animation principles, constraints, IK systems, and retargeting techniques.
* Strong problem-solving skills, especially in balancing visual quality with performance.
* Excellent communication and collaboration skills.
* Ability to work independently and proactively in a fast-paced environment.
* Passion for horror games and familiarity with Phasmophobia.
* Eligibility to work in the UK.
Nice to Have:
* Experience with VR animation challenges, especially for hand and body tracking.
* Knowledge of motion matching, procedural animation, 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 such as Git, Perforce, and Plastic.
* Additional benefits include a 5% employer match pension scheme, flexitime, travel opportunities to industry events, relocation package, annual performance bonus, employee vouchers, wellbeing allowance, referral scheme, sabbatical leave, health insurance, life insurance, and 30 days of holiday including birthday and wellbeing days.
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