Cinematics Animation Director

About the role

Epic Games spans across 25 countries with

Responsibilities

• In this role, you will
• Lead and mentor a small team of experienced internal cinematic animators.
• Own the animation direction and quality control for all cinematic animation outsourcing efforts.
• Create character-specific animations based on narrative collaborations with cinematic directors, using Unreal Engine's Sequencer and Control Rig toolset.
• Drive collaboration across disciplines - including Production, Technical Animation, and Design - to help define the style and feel of Epic's cinematic animation.
• Collaborate with other discipline leads (environment, lighting, fx, game dev, etc) in a dailies-style critique environment, find optimal solutions, and address issues as they arise.
• Direct and work with motion capture data as a core part of the layout process.
• Refine animations as needed to achieve the highest quality within project timelines. Research, evaluate, and prototype emerging animation workflows and tools, helping the team stay ahead of the curve on production innovation.

Requirements

• A strong animation reel demonstrating expertise in keyframed character and creature animation.
• Experience in a lead or senior role, managing animators and owning animation quality for both internal and outsourced teams.
• Relevant experience in cinematic animation.
• Strong instincts for both realistic and stylized motion.
• Strong story and problem solving skills when adjustments are needed.
• Ability and affinity for brainstorming and collaborating with a small team to design short stories that align with the creative brief.
• Familiarity with Unreal Engine and the Control Rig workflow.
• Experience directing and working with motion capture.
• A technical mindset - someone who enjoys digging into pipelines, scripting tools, and figuring out how to make workflows faster and better, not just animating within them.
• Experience animating hard-surface or vehicle animation.
• Understanding of modeling, skinning, and rigging.
• Hands-on experience with tools like Meshcapade, DeepMotion, Rokoko, or similar emerging motion capture and generation platforms.
• Background in scripting or technical art (Python, MEL, Blueprints).
• EPIC JOB + EPIC BENEFITS = EPIC LIFE

Additional Information

WHAT MAKES US EPIC? At the core of Epic's success are talented, passionate people. Epic prides itself on creating a collaborative, welcoming, and creative environment. Whether it's building award-winning games or crafting engine technology that enables others to make visually stunning interactive experiences, we're always innovating. Being Epic means being a part of a team that continually strives to do right by our community and users. We're constantly innovating to raise the bar of engine and game development. CINEMATICS What We Do In the Cinematics Team, we are pushing the boundaries of what is possible in realtime. We are in the early stages of this growth in realtime quality work and we are growing quickly and implementing various techniques and ideas to improve what can be done in Unreal Engine. Our team is one of the few at the forefront of delivering innovation, through cinematic quality visuals.

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