Character Animator - Generative AI Experiences SW

Apple; Cupertino (CA); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Apple in Cupertino seeks a highly skilled Character Animator to craft high-quality, stylized performances with emphasis on expression and facial animation. You will contribute to next-generation interactive computing using Maya within real-time pipelines.

Collaborate with engineers, designers and directors while exploring new technologies to push animation excellence and deliver polished results across platforms.

Qualifications

• Solid grasp on the traditional principles of animation.
• Experience in expressive facial animation.
• Expert level knowledge of Autodesk Maya.
• Understanding of technical constraints in real-time environments.
• Great at providing and receiving feedback.
• Ensure animations run efficiently across target platforms and use cases, both real time with frame rate budgets and non-real time.

Responsibilities

• Create compelling character performances using creative and stylized animation techniques.
• Develop expressive facial animation that conveys emotion and personality.
• Collaborate with directors and technical teams on animation pipelines and workflows.
• Explore emerging animation technologies and techniques.
• Work with motion capture data to create polished, performance-driven animation.
• Ensure animation quality meets real-time performance requirements.

Skills

Animation principles

Facial animation

Autodesk Maya

Real-time constraints

Feedback

Performance

Tools

USD workflow

Motion capture

Unity/Unreal

Job description

Summary

At Apple, we strive to make great products that empower people and improve their lives. We are looking for a great Character Animator to join our diverse team of engineers, artists and designers and help us take our state of the art character animation systems to the next level. This position focuses on creating high-quality, stylized character animation with emphasis on creative expression, performance, and facial animation to push the limits of the next generation of interactive computing.

Description

This role requires a deep understanding of animation artistry, technical proficiency in Maya, and the ability to work within real-time constraints while maintaining high creative standards.

Responsibilities

• Create compelling character performances using creative and stylized animation techniques
• Develop expressive facial animation that conveys emotion and personality
• Collaborate with directors and technical teams on animation pipelines and workflows
• Explore emerging animation technologies and techniques
• Work with motion capture data to create polished, performance-driven animation
• Ensure animation quality meets real-time performance requirements

Minimum Qualifications

• Solid grasp on the traditional principles of animation
• Experience in expressive facial animation
• Expert level of knowledge of Autodesk Maya
• Understanding of technical constraints in real-time environments
• Great at providing and receiving feedback
• Ensure animations run efficiently across target platforms and use cases, both real time with frame rate budgets and non-real time

Preferred Qualifications

• USD format and workflow familiarity
• Experience with procedural animation techniques
• Motion capture cleanup and performance enhancement experience
• Experience with real-time game engines (Unity, Unreal, or proprietary engines)
• Experience with non-linear animation systems, animation statemachines and/or motion matching techniques.
• Skilled in modeling and rigging is a plus