Naughty Dog is the developer of critically acclaimed and top-selling titles including the Crash Bandicoot franchise, Jak and Daxter franchise and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. We’re a relatively small team with a highly decentralized and collaborative work environment – we value feedback about any aspect of our game development from any of our team members. We’re a tightly knit group and you can frequently find us participating in yoga sessions in the office, spending lunch playing out on the court basketball, foosball in our lunchroom or around town in our frequent group evenings out. Since Naughty Dog is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment America, we also get a lot of the perks that comes from being in the Sony family – movie screenings on the Sony Pictures lots and discounts on electronics, music, movies and PlayStation hardware and software. Of course, you just can’t beat our location. Naughty Dog is based near the ocean – and beaches – in Santa Monica, California, where beautiful weather and fair temperatures grace us year-round.
Responsibilities:
• Design, create, test and maintain character rigs/setups.
• Work with the modelers to create a model that meets technical needs
• Collaborate with animators to design motion controls.
• Develop and maintain character motion and deformation systems.
• Develop secondary dynamics systems.
• Develop new techniques and processes to solve character production challenges.
• Capable of writing pipeline tools to streamline the setup process.
• Work with production management to prioritize tasks.
Requirements & Skills:
• In depth knowledge of Maya, preferably 3+ years of production experience. No cross training available due to the timeframe
• Strong understanding of both Figure and Facial Anatomy
• Complex character/vehicle rigging experience in Maya in film/broadcast or games environments
• MEL, Python and C++ experience
• Experience with setting up production pipelines while being able to follow guidelines.
• The ability to support himself and take initiative