Blizzard Entertainment

Team Name:

Overwatch

Job Title:

Senior Technical Artist II, Characters - Overwatch 2

Requisition ID:

R022870

Job Description:

Your Mission:

Blizzard Entertainment is seeking a motivated and experienced character technical artist to join our extraordinary Overwatch development team.

Help bring our next heroes to life! In this role, you will utilize your skills to provide support throughout the character skin production process, collaborating closely with character artists and animators. Your work will align with the needs of our production pipeline and the teams we support, fostering collaboration with other departments such as modeling, game design, animation, concept, and VFX.

The ideal candidate is a highly motivated artist with a track record of building complex rigs, capable of maintaining a high level of visual and technical quality for all characters. They must possess a strong understanding of skinning, ragdolls, anatomy, cloth/hair, and be comfortable working in a scripting environment.

What you bring to the table:

• Skinning new character skins, weapons, and props for our cosmetics pipeline.
• Driving physics setup, skinning, and ensuring cosmetics assets technical readiness for export.
• Actively participating in establishing a new cosmetics pipeline plan in Tech Art to improve efficiency.
• Assisting and collaborating with multiple teams, such as concept, VFX and animation, for the creation of our cosmetic assets.
• Crafting robust rigs for future cosmetic assets and their requirements.
• Addressing and resolving live Character-related issues in proprietary engine and DCC (Digital Content Creation) tools.
• Developing tools to streamline the art process within DCC tools.
• Offering feedback, guidelines, and mentorship to fellow character technical artists.

Minimum Requirements:

• 5+ years of experience in rigging and skinning characters in Maya or similar.
• Understanding of character kinematics, deformation, and topology.
• High proficiency in character skinning, physics, and technical workflows.
• Knowledge of subjects such as Maya tool development and pipeline design.
• Experience in Python and other programming languages.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills.
• Experience in generating cloth/hair rigs and crafting art-directed shot simulations.
• Detailed knowledge of layout, modeling, rigging, simulations, animation tools and workflows currently used in the industry.

Extra Points:

• Contributed to shipping at least one AAA game, preferably in a senior or leadership role, with a focus on FPS (First-Person Shooter) genres.
• Passion about Blizzard games.
• Experience in Destruction, VFX, Material Creation, etc...
• Familiarity with Simplygon LODs or equivalent software.

Submission/Portfolio Requirements:

• Resume.
• Cover Letter.
• Demo Reel or Shot Breakdown showcasing rigging, simulation, and technical proficiency.

We love hearing from anyone who is enthusiastic about changing the games industry. Not sure you meet all qualifications? Let us decide! Research shows that women and members of other under-represented groups tend to not apply to jobs when they think they may not meet every qualification, when, in fact, they often do! We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment and strongly encourage you to apply.

Accommodation Request: We are committed to working with and providing reasonable assistance to individuals with physical and mental disabilities. If you are a disabled individual requiring an accommodation to apply for an open position, please email your request to accommodationrequests@activisionblizzard.com. General employment questions cannot be accepted or processed here. Thank you for your interest.

Our World

At Blizzard Entertainment, we pour our hearts and souls into everything we create. Best known for iconic video game universes including Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo, and StarCraft, we’ve been creating genre-defining games for millions of players around the world for more than 30 years. We’re on a quest: bring our dreams to life and craft the most epic entertainment experiences…ever. Hard work, iteration and polish go into the Blizzard “secret recipe,” but the most important ingredients come from talented people who share our vision. If that sounds like you, join us.

The videogame industry and therefore our business is fast-paced and will continue to evolve. As such, the duties and responsibilities of this role may be changed as advised by the Company at any time to promote and support our business and relationships with industry partners.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status, among other characteristics.

Rewards

We provide a suite of benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being for ‘Every World’ - we’ve got our employees covered! Subject to eligibility requirements, the Company offers comprehensive benefits including:

• Medical, dental, vision, health savings account or health reimbursement account, healthcare spending accounts, dependent care spending accounts, life and AD&D insurance, disability insurance;
• 401(k) with Company match, tuition reimbursement, charitable donation matching;
• Paid holidays and vacation, paid sick time, floating holidays, compassion and bereavement leaves, parental leave;
• Mental health & wellbeing programs, fitness programs, free and discounted games, and a variety of other voluntary benefit programs like supplemental life & disability, legal service, ID protection, rental insurance, and others;
• If the Company requires that you move geographic locations for the job, then you may also be eligible for relocation assistance.

Eligibility to participate in these benefits may vary for part time and temporary full-time employees and interns with the Company. You can learn more by visiting https://www.benefitsforeveryworld.com/.

In the U.S., the standard base pay range for this role is $46.73 - $86.49 Hourly. These values reflect the expected base pay range of new hires across all U.S. locations. Ultimately, your specific range and offer will be based on several factors, including relevant experience, performance, and work location. Your Talent Professional can share this role’s range details for your local geography during the hiring process. In addition to a competitive base pay, employees in this role may be eligible for incentive compensation. Incentive compensation is not guaranteed.