Unreal Developer (Animation)
Details
At a Glance
4 day workweek
Remote-first studio
Close-knit collaborative team
Competitive salary and benefits
About Us
We make cinematic, highly polished single-player games alongside one of the best indie publishers in the business, Annapurna Interactive. It's a wildly exciting time for our studio and we'd love for you to join us on the journey of developing our flagship title, The Lost Wild.
We're a diverse mix of incredibly talented people working from all over the world with an office HQ in Brighton (UK). Work-life balance is important to us at Great Ape Games, and we operate a four-day workweek as standard. We care a lot about our team and aim to provide a creatively challenging yet rewarding and enjoyable place to work and grow.
Job Overview
We are looking for an enthusiastic and talented Unreal Developer with a particular passion for Animation and with aspirations to grow with us towards specialisation as a full-time Animation Programmer.
Ideally you have mid- to senior-level development experience in Unreal – for example, as a Gameplay Programmer – and have some experience with (and a particular interest in) animation implementation inside of the engine.
You will be working with our talented team on our flagship UE5 survival horror game, The Lost Wild. You'll play a central role in defining and implementing our in-engine animation systems to help create realistic, dynamic and captivating animal motion and behaviour.
You will work closely with multiple team members and disciplines to achieve flexible and seamless animation integration. You will assist and support animators and gameplay/AI programmers in implementing and troubleshooting our animation systems in UE5. You will research cutting-edge in-engine animation techniques with the goal of enabling us to achieve high fidelity and dynamic animal motion.
Depending on your past experience and given our cross-disciplinary approach to game development, your day-to-day duties may be quite varied and may also involve the development of gameplay features and systems only loosely tied to animation.
The Lost Wild has high aspirations to deliver a realistic, paleo-accurate and compelling representation of dinosaurs and their motion. This is an important role central to the game's identity, so your work will be prominent and rewarding and will directly influence the quality of the end product and the experience enjoyed by our players.
Requirements
A natural eye for detail and a passion for high quality gameplay and animation.
Strong general UE 4/5 development experience, with some experience and a particular interest in animation implementation.
Familiarity with Unreal animation tools and concepts such as animation blueprints, blend spaces, state machines and transitions, montages, notifies, etc.
An interest in real-time 3D bipedal or quadrupedal character/animal animation solutions.
Good general understanding of animation principles and 3D mathematics for games.
A good instinct for the scope of development necessary to provide strong 'bang for buck' solutions to gameplay and animation implementation problems.
A self-sufficient and proactive work ethic.
Desirable
Involvement in at least one shipped UE4/5 title.
Experience working at a AAA, AA, or Indie studio.
Interest in contemporary UE5 animation techniques such as motion warping, stride and slope warping, distance matching, etc.
Interest in procedural animation techniques such as procedural footstepping, dynamic IK-based hand placement, etc.
Interest in physical animation, active ragdolls (such as for creature tails), etc.
Some familiarity with first-person character animation solutions.
Some high-level understanding of Maya rigs, Control Rig, and motion capture for games.
Good C++ programming skills.
Passion for the survival horror genre in general.
You're into dinosaurs.
Benefits & Perks
A four-day (32h) workweek as standard.
Work from home or the office – it's up to you.
A genuine, company-wide aversion to crunch.
Private health, dental and life insurance via Vitality.
Predefined annual salary reviews.
31 days paid holiday each year (including bank holiday entitlements plus your birthday).
Extra time off for special events and emergencies – no questions asked.
Fast-growing studio with good potential for career advancement.
Quarterly team meetups (hosted by the company).
One hour a week paid exercise and wellness time.
Allowance for personal and career development courses.
A flexible perks package called Juno enabling you to spend points on whatever you want.
Apply NowIf you feel you have something exceptional to offer, even if you don’t think you qualify for all the above, please still apply. We are an inclusive employer and if you have potential, talent and a great work ethic, we want to hear from you. 🙏