About the Hiring Team

Welcome to Lightspeed LA, the first U.S.-based, AAA game development studio for Tencent Games. Lightspeed LA is focused on building open-world games that emphasize an ambitious living world, sophisticated player-driven gameplay, and mature, thoughtful storytelling. We are developing the first in a series of genre-defining titles.

Why join Lightspeed LA?

For us, it's not only about the exciting, new AAA open world game we're developing but also about team values and studio culture. We foster an open and transparent environment where everyone feels comfortable providing constructive feedback about all aspects of our games.

● We encourage the showing of work that's still in progress.
● We don't attack or question unfinished work, we celebrate its promise.
● We have a No Blame Culture where we blame the problem, not the person.

This is a safe place to fail, and we don't view failure as a negative, but as the natural result of pushing boundaries and trying new things. We create together. We face Challenges Together. We succeed together.

What the Role Entails

LightSpeed LA is seeking talented and enthusiastic Senior Cinematic Animators to join our new AAA studio in sunny Irvine, California. The ideal candidate is an exceptional Animator with a penchant for creating evocative, naturalistic acting and action performances that escape the uncanny valley. As our Senior Cinematic Animator, you will work directly with our Cinematic Animation Supervisor to set up our cinematic pipeline and procedures. You will take part in devising and developing our cinematic animation methodology and training. Join our team of industry veterans and help shape a world-class team that embraces a culture of respect, diversity, and inclusion. We know we can create industry leading games while maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Help us build our highly collaborative, crunch-free ethos from the ground up.

Responsibilities: 

• Animate fantastic character face and body performances
• Animate pulse-pounding action sequences together with our Gameplay Animation Team
• Help design and test our Motion Capture, Face Solving, and Animation pipeline methodologies
• Team up with our Cinematic Animation Supervisor to guide our growing Cinematic Animation Team in creating the highest quality animation in the lowest stress environment
• Collaborate with our Rigging and Gameplay Animation Teams to help create the fastest and most capable character, prop, and vehicle rigs
• Work with our Tech Art team and Cinematic Animation Supervisor developing and testing internal tools and evaluating external tools to create the best Animation Tool Suite for our production
• Work with the Cinematic Animation Supervisor to choose, vet, and support Lead Cinematic Animators as we define our quality standards and boost morale
• Help the Cinematic Animation Supervisor and Team to foster strong working relationships across all departments at all levels
• Together with the Gameplay Animation Team, elevate and safeguard the consistency between gameplay and cinematic animation 

Who We Look For

• 5+ years of experience creating naturalistic human performances with a strong focus on acting
• 3+ years of experience creating FACS-based facial performances or similar
• A Solid understanding of proper FACS usage, including the ability to evaluate and give feedback on FACS rigs and FACS-based face animation
• A strong understanding of naturalistic body mechanics and performances
• A strong sense of weight, timing, and appeal in animation
• Adept at animating humanoids
• Strong technical and artistic animation skills
• Ability to learn new tools and techniques for animation implementation
• Shipped one or more AAA game titles and/or worked on three or more award-winning feature films
• Experience non-destructively editing and animating with motion capture data in Maya
• Excellent organizational, communication, collaboration, and interpersonal skills
• A self-motivated collaborative work style with strong problem-solving skills
• A good work ethic and a willingness to push the highest animation quality bar
• A solid understanding of cinematography and camera animation 

Pluses:

• Stage, Film, and/or Television acting experience
• Familiarity with real-time cinematics such as Unreal Engine, Unity, Redshift or similar

Why Join Us?

Perks and Benefits:

Just some of the benefits of working with us here at our newly built studio in Irvine, CA.

● Free daily