Giant Squid | Technical Artist

Giant Squid is a creative environment that values experimentation, craftsmanship, dedication and teamwork in the production of artistic game experiences. As a member of the Giant Squid team, you will have the opportunity to collaborate directly with the creators of the critically acclaimed game ABZÛ. We are looking for passionate developers who are aligned with our goal of creating video game experiences that are elegant and efficient, yet evocative, beautiful and meaningful.

We offer competitive salary and benefits to our employees. All our positions are on site at our studio in West Los Angeles, CA.

TECHNICAL ARTIST
We are looking for an experienced technical artist who can create complex Maya character rigs and implement awesome effects in UE4 for our unannounced next project. Our ideal candidate will share our team’s excitement and commitment to tackle cross disciplinary tasks in order to bring our game to life.

Your biggest responsibility will be to make sure our characters look and animate as great as possible. We will rely on your extensive experience building character rigs and constructing auto rigging pipelines in Maya using Python scripting. You will be working on everything from main characters to props and special skeletal meshes for effects. You will be collaborating directly with our animator, creative director and gameplay programmers to improve rig controls and add functionality. Your ability to script in Maya will also be utilized to make tools to empower our 3D modelers.

When you aren’t rigging, we will look to you for implementation of complex effects within UE4. These may incorporate an assortment of techniques like animated meshes, scrolling UVs, vertex color hacks and particles. Additionally, we will count on you to maintain a broad understanding of the entirety of our game’s art content, from meshes, rigs and textures to particles, materials and animations, in order to ensure that our project is efficient and organized as it can be.

Beyond a core understanding of character rigging and effects creation, we are looking for a team player who shares our excitement for learning, researching new techniques, wearing multiple hats and stepping outside of regular workflows to innovate and make things happen. You will be working closely with game designers, programmers, and other artists to complete tasks of all kinds. An engaged and collaborative mindset will be crucial as you help us find solutions to unforeseen challenges requiring cross disciplinary teamwork that we discover as we bring our next project to life.

Responsibilities:

  • Make sure our characters work and look as great as they can, from Maya to in-game
  • Rig an assortment of 3D characters and effects in Maya
  • Create game effects in UE4
  • Maintain and improve our Maya asset export pipeline
  • Extend artist tools (primarily Maya, Photoshop) with scripts and plugins to add features and aid workflow
  • Identify big picture issues with our tools, pipeline, or content, and implement improvements and optimization

Requirements:

  • Advanced rigging skill in Maya
  • Python scripting for Maya
  • Experience with game effects creation
  • Experience with other common artist tools such as Photoshop

Bonus:

  • Experience with Unreal Engine
  • Experience interfacing with the Maya SDK in native code
  • Knowledge of technical details behind current graphics effects

Relocation expenses and/or visa sponsorship not offered.

Please apply at [email protected]

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