Senior Animator (Gaming Industry)

Based in the heart of Leamington Spa, Pixel Toys have spent over a decade pushing the capabilities of mobile gaming. We are excited to continue to grow our team and are always on the lookout for highly talented and motivated individuals who are passionate about gaming.

Join Pixel Toys as a Senior Technical Animator and become the architectural backbone of the animation department, working closely with our creative team to solve complex problems and streamline daily workflows. You will take a proactive lead in developing new features, processes, and pipelines, ensuring that our animators have the most efficient tools at their fingertips.

Your expertise will be vital as you specify and write custom tools, establish studio-wide best practices for skinning and rigging, and take full ownership of implementing animations directly into the game engine. You will play a key role in evolving our internal systems and significantly raising the quality bar for all our future titles.

Utilising your deep experience to build and manage character pipelines for our character-heavy projects, you will ensure that rigs are optimised for performance without sacrificing visual fidelity. From creating robust facial rigs to integrating complex dynamics like cloth and muscles, you will ensure our characters move with a level of polish that defines a AAA experience.

Cross-discipline collaboration is crucial; you will help bridge the gap between artistic vision and technical execution, ensuring a smooth, reliable path from initial rig to final in-game implementation. You will possess an in-depth understanding of animation principles, paired with a mastery of rigging and animation systems in software like Maya and MotionBuilder.

With an extensive technical toolkit, you are proficient in Python, MEL, and Qt for tool creation, and bring valuable experience in C# and Unity Editor scripting to enhance our engine-side workflows. Beyond your scripting and rigging prowess, you bring a refined eye for anatomy and character topology, allowing you to create and modify rigs for a variety of styles ranging from hyper-realistic to stylised and cartoony.

You are a creative problem solver who thrives on the challenge of integrating cutting-edge techniques, such as advanced facial rigging and secondary dynamics with a mobile-friendly pipeline. Along with a positive, self-driven approach and exceptional communication skills, you are a natural collaborator who is passionate about both the art of animation and the science of game development.

You are driven by a desire to stay at the forefront of the industry, constantly pushing for the evolution of asset pipelines to deliver world-class entertainment.

• Competitive salary, reviewed annually
• ~25 days annual leave, excluding bank holidays
• ~ Discretionary Bonus Scheme
• ~ Private Medical Insurance (including optical and dental)
• ~ Company Pension scheme
• ~ Regular socials including epic summer and Christmas parties!
• ~ Staff training and development