Art

ZeniMax Online is looking for a highly motivated Senior Animator to collaborate with our talented team of creative professionals bringing the creatures and characters of our worlds to life. Our teams are empowered to create, challenged to learn, and encouraged to lead. Harness your passion and creativity to develop genre-defining gameplay and interactive storytelling.

Responsibilities:

• Bring fantasy and realistic creatures and characters to life with high-quality animation
• Collaborate with design and engineering and define new gameplay mechanics
•  Contribute to the creative process with original ideas and inspiration that will shape the players' experience
• Provide artistic vision to gameplay and in-game storytelling
• Work directly with the character team to develop character and creature models with believable proportions and help define rigging, and other animation considerations.
• Autonomous problem-solving in a dynamic environment

Requirements:

• Have 5+ years of professional experience as an animator
• Experience developing new gameplay mechanics from the ground up
• Show ability to combine acting and action to bring personality and appeal to characters and monsters alike
• Can demonstrate an understanding of animation pipelines and standard industry processes
• Possess technical knowledge/abilities with respect to the implementation of animation into a game engine
• Shows a strong understanding of fundamental animation principles and the ability to clearly communicate those ideas to others
• Come from a background with experience collaborating across all disciplines
• Must show an aptitude for learning new systems quickly
• Have a minimum of BFA with a major in Animation or equivalent experience, additional related education a plus
• Have extensive knowledge of 3D Studio Max, Maya or Motion Builder

Desired Skills (Optional):

• Experience with motion capture and realistic human performance
• Training or experience with acting or combat
• Excellent drawing or related traditional art skills demonstrated in a portfolio
• Have a deep understanding of anatomy and human kinetics, demonstrated through a working knowledge of martial arts, dance, or related experience

Portfolio: Please include links to your work and clearly indicate your contributions. Resumes without work samples will not be considered.

We are seeking an ambitious and creative World Builder to work closely with our environment art and content design teams to create unique and diverse environments that will pull the player into our world and inspire exploration. Candidates should have a strong understanding of environmental design as it applies to game play and should be able to successfully execute those ideas in engine.

Responsibilities: 

• World Building and Level Layout, composing environments using asset placement and terrain sculpting and painting
• An ability to sculpt and texture terrain to the specifications and high standards needed
• Communicate and work with designers and other artists to create convincing and thematic environments that feel natural and compelling
• Adapt to conform to the established art style
• Closely follow art and design concepts
• Have a thorough understanding of pipelines and art integration into the game
• Contribute to the creative process through original ideas and inspiration
• Participate in critiquing your work and the work of other artists 
• Work with the entire development team in an energetic and creative environment

Requirements: 

• 2+ years of professional industry experience as a Level designer / World Builder
• Experience with any proprietary terrain sculpting tool
• Excellent composition skills
• Excellent understanding of environmental design and its functions within a game
• Excellent understanding of lighting, mood, and color
• Excellent fine art skills
• Knowledge of 3D Studio Max and/or Maya, and Photoshop
• Knowledge of World machine or other terrain creation software a plus
• Candidates must show an aptitude for learning new systems quickly
• Some Level Design experience a plus
• MMO experience a plus

ZeniMax Online Studios is looking for an experienced Art Outsourcing Manager to manage an external team of creature and character modelers. The role involves critiquing and managing work while providing benchmark examples for the external team to follow. He/she will also coordinate with internal artists that will rig, skin, export, and troubleshoot these assets as they come in from our external team.  The ideal candidate is an experienced character modeler with management experience.

Responsibilities

• Review deliverables for quality and accuracy and provide feedback as required
• Create benchmark examples based off of the Art Director’s feedback and direction
• Revise and adjust models and textures as needed in an effort to achieve the best quality possible
• Maintain a production schedule and manage multiple deliveries from different artists on a daily basis
• Coordinate daily with our internal artists, tech artists, animators and leads in order to process and export character assets into the game
• Test and troubleshoot deliverables to ensure they work correctly in the game engine

Requirements

• Well-developed communication, negotiation and personal skills
• Provide a portfolio of work demonstrating excellence in modeling and texturing animals and monsters while maintaining technical restrictions and guidelines
• 2+ years of experience in a leadership position, and at least one year of experience in outsource management
• Highly organized with an eye for quality and the ability to review deliverables for quality and accuracy
• Experience in 3dStudio Max, Photoshop, Zbrush, and Substance Painter
• Experience with project management and delivering to required schedules and deadlines
• Strong aptitude for art software
• Experience with animation, skinning and rigging in addition to a strong modeling portfolio preferred

Desired Skills

• Experience with 2D art, illustration, and figure drawing
• Experience with Excel, Project, Maya

2D Spine Animator

Highly experienced and motivated 2D Animator to work closely with our mobile game team to bring life a wide variety of characters, creatures, and VFX to the defined technical and artistic parameters.

Responsibilities:

• Create high-quality animation content, primarily inventive creatures, characters, and VFX.
• Collaborate with designers on solving gameplay problems while maintaining artistic vision.
• Work with our character designers to guide creation of appropriate models with animation considerations taken into account.
• Contribute to the creative process with original ideas and inspiration.

Requirements:

• 3+ years of professional experience as an animator.
• Solid technical abilities with respect to the implementation of animation into a game engine (Unity).
• Extensive knowledge of Spine and other asset creation tools (Photoshop, Illustrator etc.)
• Mobile development experience preferred but not required.
• Understanding of the character development process.
• Deep understanding of classic animation principles (squash and stretch, timing, overlapping action, anticipation, etc.).
• Candidates must be able to work in a small, focused team of designers, artists, and programmers with short development cycles.

We are seeking a senior-level concept artist that has published production experience with creating a diverse visual range of characters, environments, architecture, props and related game assets. A solid grasp of form, structure, color, and light for 2D art assets is essential.

Responsibilities

• Create the look of new assets by working closely with the Art Director to establish a consistent visual direction for armors, weapons, monsters, environments/landscapes, architecture, props, storyboards, marketing art, etc.
• Create inspiring and highly detailed, realistic production friendly concept art that stays on style with the aesthetics already established in our game. 
• Produce work with minimal supervision, in an efficient and timely manner, to maintain production schedules
• Work closely with colleagues to foster a highly communicative, coordinated team effort
• Ensure quality of related assets by maintaining responsibility over your work throughout the project's development

Requirements  

• Excellent traditional artistic skills with a strong grasp of composition, anatomy, color theory, perspective, lighting, environment, architectural, creature/character, costume and graphic design.
• Proficiency in life drawing (drawing from life and reference) as well as a strong imagination and a willingness to push the envelope, to innovate within the parameters of the game's world.
• Strong communication, excellent visual storytelling and written skills.
• Strong interpersonal skills-able to interact with team members of different disciplines.
• Good positive attitude and outlook, self-motivated, and a great team player.

We are seeking a skilled Technical Animator to help further develop our animation pipeline. The focus of this position will be on runtime animation integration and animation handling in the pipeline.

You will work with animators to develop blend graphs that produce smooth, AAA quality animation, seamlessly combining animated motion with various runtime input sources. You’ll help define animation related workflows and systems, and you’ll assist animators in all technical aspects of animation production. Working with multiple disciplines to identify effective solutions, you will serve as a communicator with the goal of ensuring all involved parties have a common understanding of the system and our shared goals.

Preference will be given to candidates who have experience writing animation authoring tools (in Max, Maya, etc.), though this is not the primary area of coverage. If you have experience programming in any form, this is a huge plus. If you have experience with MOCAP that is also beneficial. If you are technical, highly motivated and passionate about animation, please apply for this position. It’s an uncommon opportunity.

Responsibilities:

• Work closely with Animation, Design and Engineering to develop the means by which these groups interact with animation data
• Play a positive, proactive role in communication between all involved departments
• Advocate for Animation while maintaining attention to performance issues
• Provide ongoing support and training to Animation throughout production cycle
• Communicate, promote and document animation related processes and best practices
• Help to identify tools that will make managing large amounts of animation possible

Requirements:

• 5 or more years industry experience
• 3-5 years runtime animation system experience (can overlap with industry experience)
• Professional experience working with 2 or more animation pipelines
• Strong technical skillset and love of getting hands dirty
• Strong understanding of kinematics and eye for animation
• Experience with runtime animation tools, techniques and capabilities (Unity, Havok Behavior, Natural Motion, or proprietary, etc.)
• Familiarity with rigging
• Some familiarity with MOCAP workflows
• Understand differences between production and runtime animation requirements and data
• Clear, demonstrable understanding of animation data and how it moves through the pipeline
• Self-sufficient, motivated and independent
• Strong communication and time management skills
• Familiarity with common data formats: XML/JSON/etc.
• Familiarity with common 3D data formats: HVK/GR2/OBJ/FBX/ALEMBIC/etc.

Desired Skills:

• Some understanding of shaders
• Any programming experience
• Pyside/PyQt
• Perforce
• Experience with special effects and non-character animation
• General interest in contemporary CGI techniques

Portfolio: Please include links to your work and clearly indicate your contributions. Resumes without work samples will not be considered.

We are looking for a wildly talented and experienced Senior Character Rigger.  You will work with Animation to determine features, needs and desires. You will work with Engineering to develop an efficient pathway between the tools and the game. And you will build amazing rigs that will provide Animation with the best rigs they have ever used. If you are ready for the next biggest thing you do professionally, please apply now!

Responsibilities:

• Build a rigging system that can support many characters and machines
• Build and maintain high quality, high performance animation rigs
• Work closely with Modelers and Animators to ensure all disciplines are getting what they need
• Develop animation tools to support Animation
• Document system and advocate best practices

Requirements:

• 5+ years industry experience character rigging (Maya, Houdini, Max, Modo, etc.)
• Solid understanding of Python, C# or another object oriented scripting language
• Solid understanding of anatomy and kinematics
• Ability & interest in rigging biomorphics and mechanics
• Solid understanding of animation pipelines in general
• Ability to develop animation tools to support rigs
• Work collaboratively with technical and creative team members
• Good communication and time management skills
• Self-sufficient and independent
• Familiarity with common data formats: XML/JSON/etc.
• Familiarity with common 3D data formats: USD/OBJ/FBX/ALEMBIC/etc.
• Experience working with third party animation tools (Havok, Granny, etc)

Desired Skills:

• MotionBuilder
• PyQt or PySide
• Perforce
• C++
• Understanding of core game data pipelines
• Experience with special effects and shaders
• General interest in contemporary CGI techniques

Portfolio: Please include links to your work and clearly indicate your contributions. Resumes without work samples will not be considered.

We are looking for a skilled Technical Artist who can think procedurally to solve problems. You will be working with small, multidisciplinary groups to develop efficient, intuitive workflows. You will work with Artists and Designers to build production tools. You will work with Engineers to define performance metrics parameters. If you have experience building large environments, this is a big plus. If you have VFX industry experience, this is also a big plus. If this sounds like a challenge, it is.

Responsibilities:

• Develop efficient, maintainable workflows capable of supporting large world building efforts
• Develop world building tools for artists and designers
• Work with Engineering to develop technical guidelines and performance requirements
• Build benchmark assets that represent standards of quality and performance
• Document system and advocate best practices
• Provide support, training and mentoring to users
• Document workflows and advocate best practices

Requirements:

• Fluency in one or more languages (Python, C#, C++, MaxScript, MEL, VEX, etc.)
• Experience building extensive environments in either Game or VFX industries
• Experience working with physically based materials
• Experience with Substance Designer/Painter
• Solid technical background and an ability to design and implement systems
• Experience with procedural authoring tools such as Houdini or World Machine
• Good troubleshooting skills
• Self-sufficient and independent
• Strong communication and time management skills
• Familiarity with reality capture methods
• Familiarity with common data formats: XML/JSON/etc.
• Familiarity with common 3D data formats: OBJ/FBX/ALEMBIC/etc.

Desired Skills:

• VFX Industry experience
• Experience with Houdini
• Understanding of modern shader capabilities
• PyQt/PySide
• Perforce
• Understanding of core game data pipelines.
• Experience with special effects and shaders.
• General interest in contemporary CGI techniques.

Portfolio: Please include links to your work and clearly indicate your contributions. Resumes without work samples will not be considered.

ZeniMax Online is currently seeking a Media Artist to be responsible for the production of in-game publicity screenshots and video captured game footage for use in previews, magazine reviews, websites, and various marketing materials to appeal to MMO Gamers.

Responsibilities: 

• Navigate game clients and editors to set up and capture print-quality screenshots
• Composing artistic shots that bring to life action sequences and capture the essence of our game
• Polishing and finishing screenshots to a high quality and standard
• Setting up game clients, capture software for the purpose of capturing game footage. [marketing needs, ratings board needs, website assets et al]
• Supporting the art and marketing teams to deliver world-class marketing assets

Requirements: 

• 2+ years' experience or education equivalent
• Strong grasp and understanding of photography and cinematography, demonstrating excellent composition lighting and camera angle choices
• Exceptional eye for composition, contrast, and color
• Optional: Good knowledge of current 3D software
• Proficient user of Photoshop ability to recreate retouch and paint elements
• Artistic and creative vision
• Ability to adapt and open to a changing ideas and direction
• Follow direction, as well as provide creative solutions to problems
• Game development experience is a plus

Desired Skills: 

• Excellent composition skills demonstrated by a portfolio of work
• An understanding of video games  and gamers
• Worldbuilding and environment art production

We are looking for a skilled Character Rigger to help advance our rigging system and support ongoing projects at the studio. If you are talented, highly motivated, passionate about character production and all the surrounding activities, please apply for the position. We would love to hear from you!

Responsibilities:

• Build and maintain high quality, high-performance animation rigs.
• Work closely with Modelers and Animators to ensure all disciplines are getting what they need.
• Develop animation tools: pose, libraries, transfer, sequencing, etc.
• Provide general support to Technical Art’s in-studio customer base.

Requirements:

• 3-5 years industry experience character rigging (Maya, Houdini, Max, Modo, etc.)
• Strong understanding of anatomy and kinematics
• Strong understanding of Python, C# or another object oriented scripting language.
• Strong understanding of animation pipelines in general
• Interest in developing rigging system
• Work collaboratively with technical and creative team members.
• Strong communication skills
• Self-sufficient and independent
• Time management skills
• Familiarity with common data formats: XML/JSON/etc.
• Familiarity with common 3D data formats: OBJ/FBX/ALEMBIC/etc.

Desired Skills: 

• PyQt or PySide
• Perforce
• C++
• MMO experience a plus.
• Understanding of core game data pipelines.
• Experience with special effects and shaders.
• General interest in contemporary CGI techniques.

Portfolio: Please include links to your work and clearly indicate your contributions. Resumes without work samples will not be considered.

ZeniMax Online Studios is looking for an experienced Concept Art Outsourcing Manager to manage an external team of 2D artists. The role involves critiquing and managing work while providing benchmark examples for the external team to follow. He/she will coordinate with the Art Director, internal art leads, producers, and the external team. The ideal candidate is an experienced concept artist with management experience.

Responsibilities:

• Oversee the creation of concept art (creatures, armors, environment props) and other 2d assets (such as icons)
• Review deliverables for quality and accuracy and provide feedback as required
• Create benchmark examples based off of the Art Director’s feedback and direction
• Revise and adjust concept art as needed in an effort to achieve the best possible designs
• Maintain a production schedule and manage multiple deliveries from different artists on a daily basis
• Coordinate daily with our art leads to make sure concept art aligns with technical specifications
• Produce additional concept art as time allows

Requirements: 

• Well-developed communication, negotiation, and personal skills
• Provide a portfolio of work demonstrating excellence in concept art development
• 2+ years of experience in a leadership position and at least one year of experience in outsource management
• Highly organized with an eye for quality and the ability to review deliverables for quality and accuracy
• Experience in Photoshop, 2D art, illustration, and figure drawing
• Experience with project management and delivering to required schedules and deadlines
• Strong aptitude for art software

Desired Skills:

• Experience with 3D software such as Max, Maya, Zbrush, etc.

ZeniMax Online Studios is looking for a Technical Character Artist to assist with the production of characters. This technical art position will work with various members of the Figure Art team to address character rigging related issues: from in-game editing and data set up to vertex weighting adjustments. You don’t need a ton of experience, but you will need passion and eagerness to learn. This is a dynamic environment that will challenge you as you become a full-fledged professional game developer.

Responsibilities:

• Working closely with the Outsourcing managers and other tech artists, animators and character artists
• Preparation of the monster/creatures meshes for export into game
• Evaluate all incoming source art for the following: good deformable topology, edge loop flow, compatibility with the rig; vertex weighting
• Adjust vertex weighting for monsters and mounts
• Texture adjustments and export
• Export adjusted geometry to engine
• Data set up of exported assets in engine
• The candidate will have to learn proprietary tools for rigging of the game-ready character meshes and internal tools for export

Requirements:

• Ability to skin meshes to various rigs
• Love of characters and animation
• Strong grasp of anatomy, form, proportion and color
• Basic to intermediate understanding of character modeling and texturing principles
• Understanding of good mesh topology for deformation
• Some working experience in rigging the characters for video games
• Working knowledge of 3D Studio Max and Maya
• Familiarity with game engines
• Interest in working with and supporting Artists and Animators in the production environment
• Responsive to direction
• Tenacious problem solver
• Strong aesthetic sense and ability to communicate creative ideas clearly
• Strong communication skills in general: written & spoken
• Self-sufficient and capable of independent learning

Desired Skills:

• Familiarity with modular character customization systems is a plus
• Experience and understanding of UV layout, Normal map creation, as well as Diffuse, Specular maps for the character is a plus

We are looking for a highly experienced and motivated concept artist with a strong inclination towards cartoon and humor styles to work closely with our mobile game team to design a wide variety of characters, creatures, environments, architecture, props and VFX. A solid grasp of form, structure, color, and light for 2D art assets is essential. Traditional animation design experience a plus.

Responsibilities:

• Create the look of new assets by working closely with the Art Director to establish a consistent visual direction of creatures, characters, environments, architecture, props, VFX design, storyboards and marketing key art.
• Collaborate with designers on solving gameplay problems while maintaining artistic vision.
• Work with our animators to guide creation of appropriate designs with animation considerations taken into account.
• Produce work with minimal supervision, in an efficient and timely manner, to maintain production schedules
• Contribute to the creative process with original ideas and inspiration.

Requirements:

• 3+ years of professional experience as a concept artist or related job.
• A strong sense of design, oriented towards the stylized and cartooned. Ability to adapt to or generate a variety of potential styles as needed. Ability to design for both 2D and 3D games.
• Excellent traditional artistic skills with a strong grasp of composition, anatomy, color theory, perspective, lighting, environment, architectural, creature/character, costume and graphic design.
• Mobile development experience preferred but not required.
• Traditional animation experience is highly desirable as applied to exploring character through posing and expression.
• Strong communication, excellent visual storytelling and written skills.
• Candidates must be able to work in a small, focused team of designers, artists and programmers with short development cycles.