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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 continuously improve and expand the horror experience of Phasmophobia, currently available on Steam, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
About the Role:
We are seeking an experienced 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 within Unity. Your expertise will ensure our animations are visually impressive, responsive, and optimized for multiple platforms.
Responsibilities:
* Design, develop, and maintain complex rigs for characters, creatures, cameras, and objects that are efficient, flexible, and user-friendly.
* Implement and manage animation systems and state machines in Unity to deliver smooth in-game animations.
* Create tools to enhance and streamline the animation pipeline and workflows.
* Collaborate with artists and programmers to troubleshoot rigging, skinning, and animation implementation issues.
* Work with the programming team to refine the animation pipeline and runtime systems.
* Optimize animations for performance across PC, VR, PSVR2, and consoles.
* Ensure animations meet standards for gameplay responsiveness and visual fidelity.
Requirements:
* Professional experience as a Technical Animator or similar role on at least one shipped Unity project.
* Expertise in rigging, skinning, and creating animation control systems using 3D software such as Blender or Maya.
* Strong experience with Unity animation systems, including Animator Controllers, State Machines, and Blend Trees.
* Proficiency in C# and tool development.
* 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 teamwork skills.
* Ability to work independently 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 hand and body tracking.
* Knowledge of motion matching, procedural animation, or physics-based 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 bonus, wellbeing allowances, referral schemes, sabbatical leave, comprehensive health insurance, life insurance, 30 days holiday including birthdays and wellbeing days.
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