Technical Animator

About the role

North Beach Games is expanding its animation department for Stranded Deep 2 and needs a Technical Animator to bridge the gap between internal teams and outsourced animation studios. You will work hands‑on creating and refining character animations while ensuring pipelines run smoothly on a small, collaborative team.

Key responsibilities

• Serve as the primary liaison with external animation studios, reviewing and providing feedback on delivered assets.
• Create and adjust simple character animations as needed.
• Integrate animation into Unity, building runtime rigs, state machines, blend setups, and procedural layers.
• Maintain and troubleshoot physics‑driven systems such as ragdoll and cloth.
• Develop and refine procedural animation, runtime additives, and Control Rigs.
• Support cinematic and dialogue integration to ensure seamless gameplay blending.
• Debug, optimise, and document animation systems and workflows.
• Collaborate with programmers to improve tools and pipelines.
• Participate in cross‑disciplinary meetings to align animation direction with gameplay goals.

Required profile

• Practical experience with Unity or a strong willingness to learn its animation pipeline.
• Solid background in rigging (IK/FK, FACS‑based facial rigs) and animation retargeting.
• Hands‑on experience integrating animation into a game engine, including state machines and blend spaces.
• Familiarity with physics‑driven animation elements such as ragdoll and cloth.
• Strong knowledge of Maya and a well‑rounded animation portfolio (indie or AAA).
• Experience managing or communicating with outsourced animation vendors.

Required skills

• Unity
• Maya
• IK/FK rigging
• FACS facial rigging
• Animation retargeting
• State machines
• Blend spaces
• Ragdoll simulation
• Cloth simulation
• Control Rigs
• Procedural animation