Senior Gameplay Animator: Responsive Combat & Vision

Activision Blizzard Inc.; Santa Monica (CA); On-site; USD 137,000 - 253,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical/health benefits

401(k) with match

Paid holidays and vacation

Parental leave

Mental health & wellbeing programs

Job summary

Activision Blizzard, Inc. seeks a Principal Gameplay Animator to shape the animation vision for an exciting new IP.

You’ll drive high-quality character animations, with strong gameplay and combat expertise, partnering with design, engineering, art, audio and narrative to elevate the player experience. You’ll mentor the team, refine animation pipelines, and balance quality with performance, contributing to state machines, blending and in-engine implementation while advancing tools and workflows

Qualifications

• Significant gameplay animation experience with senior/principal contribution to ships.
• Strong combat animation skills with responsive player/enemy behaviours.
• Deep understanding of combat readability, timing, anticipation, hit reactions, attack cycles, locomotion and player control.
• Experience working in game engines and contributing to animation systems/implementation.
• Strong knowledge of motion-capture pipelines, including editing and blending mocap with keyframe animation.
• Excellent animation fundamentals across human and creature movement: timing, weight, balance, physicality.

Responsibilities

• Own and drive the quality bar for gameplay animation, focusing on responsive combat.
• Create and refine high-quality character animations using animation fundamentals and motion-capture data.
• Shape animation approaches supporting combat design, player expression, enemy behaviours, traversal and moment-to-moment gameplay.
• Collaborate with Design, Engineering, Art, Audio and Narrative to enhance the player experience.
• Apply knowledge of design mechanics, 3Cs, AI behaviour, camera animation and narrative context.
• Contribute to animation systems, state machines, blending, transitions and in-engine implementation for fluid gameplay.
• Provide clear creative direction, feedback and mentorship to raise team craft.
• Identify opportunities to improve tools, workflows and pipelines for scalable work.
• Solve complex technical and creative challenges balancing quality, performance and production needs.

Skills

Gameplay animation

Combat animation

Combat readability

MoCap pipelines

Maya proficiency

Animation fundamentals

Cross-disciplinary collaboration

Technical problem solving

Tools

Maya

Job description

Activision Blizzard, Inc. seeks a Principal Gameplay Animator to shape the animation vision for an exciting new IP.

You’ll drive high-quality character animations, with strong gameplay and combat expertise, partnering with design, engineering, art, audio and narrative to elevate the player experience. You’ll mentor the team, refine animation pipelines, and balance quality with performance, contributing to state machines, blending and in-engine implementation while advancing tools and workflows