Senior Animator - Real-Time Unreal Mocap Specialist (Remote within NZ)

Prismatic Studios; Auckland; On-site; NZD 55,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

Prismatic Studios in Auckland is seeking a Senior Animator to work across Unreal Engine projects, focusing on character animation and motion capture from raw performances to production-ready work. You will handle full-body and facial animation, collaborate with artists, designers, and engineers, and refine animation directly in Unreal Engine.

This is a full-time contract with on-site work preferred; remote work within New Zealand may be considered for the right candidate and eligibility to work

Qualifications

• 4+ years of professional experience as an Animator or similar role.
• Strong professional experience with 3D character animation, preferably using Maya.
• Strong experience with full-body motion capture cleanup and polishing.
• Experience with facial motion capture cleanup and polishing.
• Strong understanding of character animation fundamentals, including body mechanics, timing, weight, balance, momentum and natural human movement.
• Experience with gameplay locomotion animation and transitions.
• Experience working with Unreal Engine character animation or similar real-time game animation pipelines.
• Familiarity with Maya HumanIK (HIK), MotionBuilder or comparable animation and retargeting workflows.
• Strong understanding of animation retargeting and working across different character rigs and proportions.
• Ability to identify and correct common motion capture and retargeting issues.
• Ability to evaluate and refine animation quality within Unreal Engine, not only within Maya.
• Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate within multidisciplinary teams.
• Self-driven, organised and capable of independently managing workload.

Responsibilities

• Clean up and polish full-body motion capture performances to production-ready quality.
• Clean up and refine facial motion capture, including expressions, lip-sync, mouth shapes, eye movement, blinking and common capture artifacts.
• Combine full-body and facial motion capture into believable and consistent character performances.
• Create and refine gameplay animation, including locomotion, walks, runs, sprints, starts, stops, turns, pivots and transitions.
• Identify and correct common mocap issues including foot sliding, incorrect foot contacts, jitter, unnatural weight transfer and retargeting artifacts.
• Retarget animation across different character rigs and proportions.
• Implement and validate character animation within Unreal Engine.
• Review animation quality in-engine and make adjustments based on real-time playback and gameplay requirements.
• Work with animation tools and pipelines to prepare and maintain production-ready animation libraries.
• Contribute to the development and improvement of animation workflows and best practices.
• Provide guidance and feedback to other artists where required.

Skills

4+ years experience

3D character animation

Maya

Unreal Engine

Full-body mocap cleanup

Facial mocap cleanup

Animation retargeting

Body mechanics

In-engine evaluation

Collaboration

Tools

Maya

MotionBuilder

Job description

Prismatic Studios in Auckland is seeking a Senior Animator to work across Unreal Engine projects, focusing on character animation and motion capture from raw performances to production-ready work. You will handle full-body and facial animation, collaborate with artists, designers, and engineers, and refine animation directly in Unreal Engine.

This is a full-time contract with on-site work preferred; remote work within New Zealand may be considered for the right candidate and eligibility to work