Art

Overview

ZeniMax Online Studios is seeking a Senior Technical Artist with a focus in animation to join our studio for the development of our next AAA game.  This is a chance to join an experienced group of developers in pre-production for a new IP.

The ideal candidate is a skilled Technical Artist with experience in rigging and animation.  You will be working with small, multidisciplinary groups of artists, designers and engineers to develop efficient, intuitive workflows, build production tools, and identify performance metrics parameters.

Responsibilities

• Work within a multidisciplinary team to develop efficient, maintainable workflows capable of supporting a large, complex project with a wide range of animation needs
• Develop tools and workflows to support animators
• Develop and maintain runtime animation graphs
• Provide direct support to the animation team
• Work with Engineering to develop best practices, technical guidelines, and performance metrics for animation
• Document workflows and advocate best practices

Qualifications

• Fluent in one or more programming language (Python, C#, C++, etc.)
• Solid technical background with ability to design and implement systems
• 3+ years relevant industry experience
• A Bachelor’s degree in an art-related discipline
• Solid understanding of kinematics, animation principles and ability to translate this into tangible production tools and processes
• Experience with runtime animation tools, techniques and capabilities (Unity, Havok Behavior, Natural Motion, or proprietary systems, etc.)
• Experience working with an animation graph or similar system
• Experience rigging characters for animation
• Understand differences between production and runtime animation requirements
• Strong troubleshooting skills
• Familiarity with common data formats: XML/JSON/etc.
• Familiarity with common 3D data formats: OBJ/FBX/ALEMBIC/etc.

Preferred Skills

• Mocap Experience
• Experience working with 2 or more animation pipelines
• Linear algebra
• Perforce
• PyQt/PySide
• General interest in contemporary CGI techniques

Overview

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

Qualifications

• 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
• A Bachelor’s degree in an art-related discipline
• 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.

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

Preferred 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

Overview

We are seeking an enthusiastic Senior VFX Artist to collaborate with our Art and Design teams and create amazing effects for The Elder Scrolls Online.

Responsibilities

• Develop visually stunning particle and shader effects within the defined visual style through creative use of particles, geometry, and animation
• Work with the Design and Concept Art teams to develop clean, highly readable VFX that support gameplay initiatives
• Designing, creating, and integrating VFX from start to finish
• Ensure that VFX assets are built efficiently and perform within performance budgets
• Concept, propose, and present creative ideas
• Collaborate with our Artists, Animators, Designers, and Programmers to implement effects
• Set dressing of environments and cinematics with VFX
• Testing, debugging, solving problems and fixing bugs
• Performance testing and optimizing VFX for different platforms
• Provide creative input specific to assigned tasks

Qualifications

• Thorough understanding of particle effects technology, techniques, and implementation
• Demonstrable technical knowledge of effects generation within an engine
• 5+ years of professional industry experience creating effects; experience shipping at least two AAA titles as a VFX Artist preferred
• Portfolio demonstrating a wide variety of VFX
• An aptitude for learning new systems quickly
• Experience with 3D Studio Max and Photoshop
• Ability to quickly conceptualize, present, and execute ideas
• Excellent communication, interpersonal, and organization skills
• Excellent sense of scale, timing, detail, form, texture, and color
• Must have the drive to conquer technical challenges
• Ability to handle a variety of tasks in an efficient manner and within deadlines

Overview

ZeniMax Online Studios is seeking a highly experienced and motivated Animator to work closely with our Animation team to bring life to a wide variety of characters and creatures to the defined technical and artistic parameters.

Responsibilities

• Create high quality animation content, primarily inventive creatures and characters
• Collaborate with designers on solving gameplay problems while maintaining artistic vision
• Work with our Character Artists to develop proper models with animation considerations
• Contribute to the creative process with original ideas and inspiration
• Troubleshoot and solve animation issues with all departments
• Implement animation assets into game engine and iterate as needed

Qualifications

• 3+ years of professional experience as an Animator
• Technical experience working with game engines and game animation implementation
• Experience in Maya animation and/or Max animation packages
• Expert knowledge of basic principles of animation: timing, dynamics, and body mechanics
• Deep understanding of anatomy and human kinetics
• Understanding of the character development process and its technical dependencies and limitations
• Acting and staging skills with focus on realistic animation styles
• Receptive to constructive feedback and willingness to work through an iterative process
• Ability to adapt to technical dependencies and engine limitations
• Excellent organizational, teamwork, and communication skills
• Aptitude for learning new systems quickly

Overview

ZeniMax Online Studios is looking for an experienced Senior Environment Artist. Primary responsibilities are to develop all environments and environmental/ambient objects and to ensure consistent quality within the established art style.

Responsibilities

• Model and texture both organic and hard surface models to the highest level possible while maintaining game restrictions and guidelines
• Match the look, feel, and style of our game
• Collaborate with the Concept team in producing quality assets; work independently or without Concept when needed
• Problem-solve and work collaboratively with the Design team
• Receive and provide feedback in a constructive and collaborative manner
• Critique one’s own work and meet set deadlines

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience as an Environment Artist or other relevant experience in the industry
• Must have a portfolio demonstrating excellence in both 2D and 3D art
• Experience in 3dStudio Max, Substance Painter, Photoshop, and Zbrush
• Have a positive attitude, be a team player, and have excellent communication skills both verbally and written
• Passion for making excellent art

Overview

We are seeking an experienced Mobile Artist with an emphasis in 3D to work closely with our mobile game team to bring life to a wide variety of characters, creatures, environments, and VFX to the defined technical and artistic parameters. Flexibility is our key requirement as we develop content within many visual styles and game formats. We seek a team member who can complement our existing skill sets and bring new experience and skills to the team.

Responsibilities

• Create high quality content, primarily inventive creatures, characters, environments, and VFX
• Work with Engineers on asset implementation in the Unity environment
• Collaborate with Designers on solving gameplay problems while maintaining artistic vision
• Contribute to the creative process with original ideas and inspiration

Qualifications

• 3+ years of professional experience as a Game Artist; mobile development experience is a bonus
• Solid technical abilities with respect to the implementation of game assets into a game engine (Unity) with the ability to create performant content
• Unity experience preferred
• Extensive knowledge of 3D Studio Max, Maya, or Blender, Z-Brush, Mudbox, and other asset creation tools (e.g. Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.)
• Wide and current experience in art asset production including but not limited to 3D modeling and animation, 2D animation, VFX, and UI
• Candidates must be able to work in a small, focused team of Designers, Artists, and Programmers with short development cycles

Overview

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. This Technical Artist will also be making art changes and adjustments to submitted assets, so experience with character art is important. This is a dynamic environment that will challenge you as you become a full-fledged professional game developer.

Responsibilities

• Work closely with the Outsourcing Managers, other Tech Artists, and Character Artists
• Prepare armor, costumes, weapons, mounts, and monsters for export into game
• Evaluate all incoming outsourced art for technical issues
• Adjust vertex weighting for armors, costumes, mounts, and monsters
• Geo and texture adjustments on outsourced assets when necessary
• Export adjusted geometry to engine
• Data set-up of exported assets in engine
• Learn proprietary tools for rigging of the game-ready character meshes and internal tools for export

Qualifications

• Ability to skin meshes to various rigs
• Love of characters and animation
• Strong grasp of anatomy, form, proportion, and color
• Intermediate+ understanding of character modeling and texturing principles
• Understanding of good mesh topology for deformation
• Some working experience in rigging characters for video games
• Working knowledge of 3D Studio Max, Zbrush, and Photoshop
• 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: written and verbal
• Self-sufficient and capable of independent learning

Preferred Skills

• Familiarity with modular character customization systems is a plus
• Experience with animation is a plus but not required
• Enjoy playing MMOs

Overview

We are seeking an enthusiastic Lead VFX Artist to collaborate with our Art and Design teams to create amazing effects for The Elder Scrolls Online.

Responsibilities

• Develop visually stunning particle and shader effects within the defined visual style through the creative use of particles, geometry, and animation
• Work with the Design and Concept Art teams to develop clean, highly readable VFX that support gameplay initiatives
• Design, create, and integrate VFX from start to finish
• Ensure that VFX assets are built efficiently and perform within performance budgets
• Concept, propose, and present creative ideas and input
• Collaborate with our Artists, Animators, Designers, and Programmers to implement effects
• Set dressing of environments and cinematics with VFX
• Test, de-bug, solve problems, and optimize VFX for different platforms
• Review work of other VFX Artists and provide feedback
• Train and mentor VFX Artists
• Handle scheduling and scoping to provide realistic timelines for studio objectives

Qualifications

• Thorough understanding of particle effects technology, techniques, and implementation
  
• Demonstrable technical knowledge of effects generation within an engine
  
• 5+ years of professional industry experience creating effects; experience shipping at least two AAA titles as a VFX Artist
  
• Experience shipping at least one AAA title as a VFX Lead preferred
  
• Portfolio demonstrating a wide variety of VFX
  
• An aptitude for learning new systems quickly
  
• Experience with 3D Studio Max, Houdini, and Photoshop
  
• Ability to quickly conceptualize, present, and execute ideas
  
• Excellent communication, interpersonal, and organization skills
  
• Excellent sense of scale, timing, detail, form, texture, and color
  
• Must have the drive to conquer technical challenges
  
• Ability to handle a variety of tasks in an efficient manner and within deadlines
  

Overview

The Lead User Interface Artist is responsible for creation of the UI art style, motion design, and the graphic production of the menus and user interfaces of video games. These interfaces include, but are not limited to, main menu, loading screens, in-game HUD, inventory, and other 2d graphic design elements. This person will work in close cooperation with the Art Director, Game Designers and Programmers.

Responsibilities

• Develop a comprehensive UI style guide to be applied to all user interfaces
  
• Develop concepts and the visual design of the game menus and user interfaces
  
• Assure that the UI art style is consistent across all user interfaces
  

Qualifications

• 10 years minimum of game development experience in graphic design (or the equivalent) specialized in the creation of interfaces and in-menu design
  
• Substantial examples of current and past work demonstrating a strong understanding of user interaction, design philosophy, shape, color, and composition
  
• Experience in motion design including a portfolio with Motion Graphics examples
  
• Self-motivated, but able to take feedback and criticism and properly reflect comments in work
  
• Excellent team player with very strong work ethic and a collaborative/cooperative attitude
  
• Passion for games and gaming
  
• An understanding of and appreciation for milestones, schedules, deadlines, and efficient game development processes
• Excellent oral and written communication skills
  

Preferred Skills

• Credited, shipped, AAA game titles
  
• 3d modeling
  
• Scripting
  
• Traditional art skills including sketching, illustration, painting, etc.
  
• University or equivalent art-related degree