Senior Gameplay Animator

Job Description

Why we need you:

Beyond Good & Evil 2 is an open-world action-adventure game set in a captivating space opera universe. It is also the direct prequel to the 2003 classic Thanks to the technological advances brought about by our proprietary Voyager engine, Beyond Good & Evil 2 aims to offer an organic, seamless experience of exploration and space piracy on a solar system scale, featuring exotic locations, colorful characters, and countless mysteries to discover, either solo or with friends. If you're looking for a unique adventure, join our team and help us create System 3

We are expanding our 6-person Gameplay Animation team to take on major challenges in Beyond Good & Evil 2.

Join an experienced team where everyone is an owner of their features, in a stimulating AAA environment.

Become a key player in creating animations that will thrill players.

Responsibilities:

What you will do:

Create and integrate gameplay animations.

• Produce and integrate gameplay animations (combat, locomotion, traversal) with a high level of responsiveness and readability, and work independently on a subsystem (e.g., combat or traversal) from the outset.
• Adapt animations to gameplay constraints: responsiveness, readability, timing.
• Work from keyframes and/or motion capture, adjusting, reworking, and energizing the data to match the artistic direction.
• Export and test animations using internal tools.
• Energize the animation, give it movement, and place it in context (beyond simple mocap cleaning).

Development of gameplay-oriented animation systems

• Participate in the prototyping and polishing of animation systems until the final version.
• Ensure compatibility with game mechanics (combat, interactions).
• Contribute to the development of Main Character & NPC animations (combat, behaviors).

Inter-team collaboration

• Work closely with:
  • the Animation Art Director,
  • the Lead Animator and the team of animators,
  • the Game Designers (intentions, readability),
  • the Gameplay Programmers (integration, debugging, technical constraints),
  • the Technical Animators (pipelines, state machines, animtrees).

• Identify needs, report problems, and propose appropriate solutions.

Quality, optimization & iteration

• Test the game to identify additional animation needs.
• Iterate on integrated content to ensure consistency, artistic fidelity, and performance.
• Maintain a high level of quality while respecting the technical constraints of the internal AAA engine.

Your work environment :

• Based at Ubisoft Montpellier, under the supervision of the Lead Animator (minimum 3 days on site)
• Experienced and specialized team.
• Tools: MotionBuilder (main), internal AAA engine, Jira, Perforce (P4V).
• Animation style: Semi-realistic, stylized, gameplay-oriented.

Qualifications

Technical skills

• Solid background in 3D animation — share your demo reel with your best animations.
• Excellent minimum proficiency in MotionBuilder (keyframe + mocap).
• Very good skills in combat gameplay animation.
• Proficiency Experience with game engines, animation pipelines, import/export, Perforce.
• Experience on AAA projects.
• Ability to communicate in English (spoken and written).

Nice to have

• Knowledge of Maya (optional).
• Appetite for Tech Anim (state machines, animtrees, pipeline).
• Understanding of French.

Soft skills:

• Autonomy and initiative: ability to quickly grasp topics, propose solutions, and move forward without constant supervision.
• Excellent communication: essential for collaborating effectively with different teams.
• Artistic sense and attention to detail: ensuring animations are consistent with the stylized semi-realistic artistic direction.
• Interdisciplinary collaboration: working with a variety of profiles and understanding their constraints to find appropriate solutions.

Additional Information

The recruitment process:

Our recruitment process

• Review of your application: our team will carefully review your application and portfolio.
• Interview 1: Introduction (1 hour, via video conference): a discussion with a member of the recruitment team to get to know you better and check that your background matches our expectations.
• Interview 2: Artistic (1 hour, via video conference): with members of the team (Animation Director and Animation Team Lead) to discuss your methodology and skills, as well as a live discussion about your demo reel.
• Artistic