Animation TD

Summary:

At Naughty Dog, Animation TDs play a crucial part in ensuring the Animation Team has the tools and tech that it needs.  That may mean writing new tools, establishing standards and workflows, debugging issues, or creating highly-technical assets – whatever it takes to help the team work as smoothly as possible!

Responsibilities:

• Create tools to streamline artist workflows (example: asset management tools, pipeline automation scripts, integration with project management software)
• Create tools to give artists more power (example: motion capture data processing , animation retargeting tools, physics sim pipeline, tools leveraging machine learning)
• Work with the engineering team to develop low-level tools infrastructure and asset pipelines
• Ensure tool interfaces are user-friendly and effective
• Create well-architected systems that can be built upon for years to come
• Develop workflows and standards for efficient content generation, including optimization standards
• Help to maintain a wide array of existing workflows and tools
• Test and validate tools and techniques in production
• Work between all art departments (characters, VFX, sound, environment, etc.) on shared technology
• Additional responsibilities may be assigned as needed

Requirements & Skills:

• Strong experience with Python, PyQT/PySide, and with Maya scripting
• Ability to write robust code, both from a functional and architectural standpoint
• Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to work with minimal supervision
• Familiarity with content creation and game development pipelines
• Good oral and written skills
• 3+ years of production experience in video games, film or VFX

Bonus Skills:

• Animation experience is a major plus
• Experience in C# or C++
• Experience with OpenMaya and Maya plugin development
• Experience with motion capture pipeline
• Experience with Machine Learning and data analysis

As part of the Naughty Dog application process, candidates should expect to be given a technical interview and may be asked to complete an animation test.