Animator/Character Artist, Virtual/Augmented Reality
Our mission is to protect life.
We’re out to make the world a safer place by solving big problems and taking on the public safety challenges of our time. From our company's inception building the TASER device to a full suite of hardware and software solutions, we are focused on providing police agencies with state-of-the-art devices and services they need to successfully serve and protect us. In the next few years, we're going to eliminate the burden of paperwork in policing, so officers can increase the time they spend building relationships and serving in their communities. We’ll put video at the heart of police records so our justice system can get to the truth faster. And we won't stop innovating until the bullet is rendered obsolete.
It’s a big mission, but it’s one we’ll pursue relentlessly every single day.
Your ImpactBuild AR and VR Solutions for Social Good:
We are working with cutting edge technology and need your help to make it all come together. You will join an interdisciplinary team tackling the biggest challenges in public safety training head-on, including immersive VR based empathy, coping and de-escalation training to help officers engage with the communities they serve, with greater awareness and safety.
As one of the expanding members of the Axon’s AR/VR team, the Animator / Character Artist will be responsible for bringing our characters to life through realistic 3D characters, rigging and animation. This role will partner with engineering, content, UX and user research to create the best visual immersive quality products for our trainings.
Our AR/VR TeamWe believe that happy teams make the best products, so we foster a friendly, open, introspective team culture that encourages everyone to speak their mind, collaborate together, and have fun. The team conducts daily check-ins, open format meetings, as well as a weekly VR Happy Hour in headset!
We believe we can only succeed if we deeply understand our customers and get to know them. We spend a lot of time with law enforcement officers to learn about their needs, watch their experience and see the real impact of our work. We also work closely with our Axon Community Impact team, along with other community subject experts to create our content and curriculum to reflect the needs of both law enforcement + community.
What about the day-to-day?You will be responsible for the animation of the character design, editing high quality 3D character models, rigging and animation, plus be a strategic partner to UX, Content, Product Management and Engineering.
On any given day you may find yourself:
- Animating realistic, low polygon 3D characters including facial features and accurately proportioned bodies
- Talking to your team of artists and designers about how to best animate micro expressions
- Getting into headset to see how the characters are moving
- Teach another artist how to build morph sliders and blend shapes to support facial expressions
- Invent, create and implement in-game animations that are realistic and satisfying to watch
- Answering a question from a Product Manager about character body language or character blocking
- Collaborating with Tech Art and other teams about character and creature pipeline (rig testing)
- Attending standup in VR and sharing with the XR team (standing around you as avatars) your daily update
- Modifying and optimize characters based on subject matter expert feedback, animation needs, or technical limitations
- Using a combination of key frame and motion capture techniques to bring the characters to life
- Work with engineers and technical artist to define and improve our animation pipeline
- Collaborate with the Art Director and Narrative Designer to animate and implement realistic characters
- Learning about the latest trends/experiences in XR motion capture —experimenting with them yourself
Basic Qualifications
- 3-5+ years experience in game development as a character artist and animation
- A portfolio demonstrating your outstanding animation of 3D characters
- Expertise modeling low polygon 3D models using 3DS Max, Maya, Zbrush, and motion capture tools
- Strong animation fundamentals with a focus on human movement (timing, weight, balance)
- An understanding of art production processes, and experience with the full development cycle in shipped titles
- Create expressive character animation portraying a wide range of emotions
- Understand technical performance and memory consideration, and topology requirements to creating efficient meshes and textures, and animations
- Strong problem-solving skills both technical and cross-department
- Experience with a modern 3D game engine such as Unity and Unreal
- Works effectively with cross-functional teams
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience creating titles on XR platforms like Hololens, Oculus, HTC Vive, or PlayStation VR.
- Shipped multiple AAA titles or equivalent work
- A constant desire to learn, improve, and help others improve
Compensation and Benefits
- Competitive salary and 401K with employer match.
- Discretionary paid time off.
- Robust parental leave policy.
- An award-winning office/working environment.
- Ride along with real police officers in real life situations, explore wide range of third-party VR content, get inspired.
- Get paid to play
- And more...
We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.