Intermediate Technical Artist (Unreal Engine)

Red Hook Games•Vancouver, BC

22d•Onsite

About The Position

Red Hook are the creators of the Darkest Dungeon series, which has grown from crowdfunded beginnings to become gaming’s most iconic strategy gothic horror franchise. Darkest Dungeon and Darkest Dungeon II have combined to sell many millions of copies. Red Hook continues to function as an independent studio under its parent company, Behaviour Interactive, with a mandate to continue creating bold titles featuring significant innovation. We strive to maintain a workplace founded upon creativity, respect, transparency, and accountability. Joining Red Hook offers clear vision and leadership from the original Darkest Dungeon creators, a collaborative culture that respects and elevates each other’s craft, and agency with real creative ownership. The studio emphasizes stability, avoiding boom and bust cycles, and offers relocation assistance to Vancouver, British Columbia. Reporting to the Technical Art Director, this role will work closely with the Animation Director and play a crucial role in the development of our character pipeline for a new and ambitious project.

Requirements

5+ years as a Technical Artist, with at least one significant title shipped in that role (Unreal preferred)
3+ years character rigging in production
3+ years using Maya (or equivalent) in production
3+ years using Python in production
1+ years using runtime rigs, physics, cloth simulation, blueprints in Unreal (or equivalent in another engine)
Strong understanding of state machines, blend spaces, IK solvers, and procedural animation.
Be well-organized, self-sufficient and self-motivated.
Should be able to perform duties with little oversight, and take high level direction to produce tangible results.
Collaborative and friendly; your ability to get along with other team members while still pushing for a high quality end product is crucial to success

Nice To Haves

Direct experience with Unreal Python API

Responsibilities

Establish best practices and workflows for all secondary motion on characters, from hand animation to physics solutions.
Build and optimize Unreal control rigs, constraints, and other runtime rigging solutions for all in-game characters.
Develop efficient workflows for managing dynamic relationships between in-game entities, such as prop-to-actor attachments and actor-to-actor grapple/interaction systems.
Maintain Unreal animation systems, including blueprints, state machines, pose layering, additives, animation notifies and custom nodes.
Build and maintain tools to support animation authoring in both Maya and Unreal.