Electronic Arts

Senior Technical Animator - A-Team

Electronic Arts Inc. is a leading global interactive entertainment software company. EA delivers games, content and online services for Internet-connected consoles, personal computers, mobile phones and tablets.

Team Overview:

Meet the A-Team: an innovative Character Animation Research Team based in Vancouver, British Columbia, with talented remote members spread across North America.

We are a cross-functional, applied R&D team, strategically positioned in EA to drive and disrupt the future of character animation technology. We are a self-motivated, collaborative team, empowered to constantly explore and leverage the latest innovations across the fields of animation, rigging, physics, and machine learning. Our technology has been used to create next-generation gameplay realism across EA titles including FC, Madden, NHL, UFC, Battlefield, and many others.

Join us in shaping the future of how games are made!

We are searching for a talented and experienced Senior Technical Animator to join the A-Team. Our ideal candidate is, like us, passionate about advancing games in a collaborative environment with a team of veteran developers. The ideal candidate will possess a strong problem-solving mentality and be fearless in the face of new technologies and tools. You will be responsible for driving the design and development of animator-first DCC tools and Machine Learning initiatives. This includes providing guidance & imagining the future of industry leading animation tools & workflows, crafting high quality animations, and building prototypes to showcase the awesome innovations we develop. This is not a rigging position.

Location:

Vancouver or remote in North America

You will...

• Curate, edit, and implement motion capture data into animation sets to push the limits of our new technologies in Motion Matching and Machine Learning.
• Work side-by-side with engineers to develop new animation solutions across DCC and Machine Learning.
• Design cutting edge animation tools/pipelines for animators and designers in the digital content creation space.
• Work side-by-side with UX designers to guide the UX of these tools, in service of the broader animation community.
• Provide feedback on R&D projects in other focus areas, including procedural runtime systems and rigging.
• Review the animation results generated by AI models, and provide feedback for areas of improvement.
• Collaborate with partner game teams to solve unique animation challenges.
• Design and create high quality technical demos utilizing our team’s technology.
• Be a leader in the animation community at EA by working with partner game teams to teach our new animation systems and tools, and communicate feedback.
• Coordinate with QA to validate and maintain the high quality of our animation systems.
• Create and maintain documentation and tutorials to educate others about our team’s unique technologies.
• Report directly to the A-Team Animation Director to take advantage of any opportunities you find.

Ideally you will have…

• Proven experience as a Technical Animation expert showcased with state machines and procedural solutions in released products.
• A strong understanding of animation principles and anatomy.
• Experience with managing animation pipelines and workflows.
• Experience with motion capture and retargeting.
• Proficient in standard industry tools such as Autodesk Maya.
• Experience working closely with other domains - especially Designers, Engineers and Artists.
• Excellent problem-solving skills. Must be able to quickly identify issues and resolve them.

Supplemental Skills:

• Experience troubleshooting and debugging runtime animation systems.
• Experience in Cinematics/Presentation
• MotionBuilder experience is an asset.

Portfolio:

• All submissions must include a portfolio showing personal and professional artwork.