Technical Artist - Rigging

About Nifty Island 🏝️

Nifty Island is a leading social game world optimized for user-generated content. Every player is given a free island that serves as their home the metaverse. Players can create and play games, bring their own NFTs and avatars, and build in-game assets to share with the world.

Nifty Island recently launched in closed alpha (February 2022) and we are looking to bulk out our engineering team with world-class Unity game developers. We’re a tight-knit crew with high conviction in and commitment to what we’re building. We make big commitments to our team members and believe that the best path to success is to have your soul completely in the game. You will have a large amount of ownership and work directly with our growing community. If you’re looking for a real challenge, adventure, and comradery — join us!

To learn more, check us out at www.niftyisland.com or on Twitter at @Nifty_Island.

What we're looking for:

We are looking for a Rigging Technical Artist developer to be responsible for creating the animation control systems and deformation rigs used by the animation team to bring characters, vehicles, environment sets, and props to life. We are looking for a candidate with strong-problem solving abilities and a collaborative attitude to help us develop rigging solutions here at Nifty Island.

What you’ll do here:

• Create and modify rigging systems templates
• Develop and maintaining procedural rig components
• Deploy animation tools, workflows, and pipelines to improve production efficiency
• Support the your rigs through animation and into the game engine
• Troubleshoot technical issues as they arise and raise issues with department lead concerning workflow inefficiencies
• Collaborate with unity engineers and the broader art team to solve issues ensuring the continuity of our final product
• Coordinate in problem identification and provide solutions
• Keep supervisors and production updated in a timely manner

You’ll be a great fit if:

• You have 3+ years of technical art/rigging experience and have shipped game titles or VFX/animations
• You are proficient with Maya (Unity game engine experience is a plus)
• You have experience with Python and creating rigs, tools, and maintaining code base with version control software
• You have strong knowledge of the principles of animation and basic knowledge of asset lifecycles in game/animation/VFX pipelines
• You have an in-depth understanding of established methods of working with skeletons, modeling geometry, and weighting that meet the project’s creative objectives
• You are efficient at time management and have a strong understanding of resource management
• You are a strong problem solver and have an eye for detail and continuity
• You have experience setting up rigs for optimal performance and efficient animation output
• You have an understanding of anatomy and asset topology as it pertains to mesh flow and skinning rigs

Benefits & Perks

• Competitive salary and equity (token) grant — a customizable sliding scale of cash and tokens
• Remote-first team with annual team retreats
• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision benefits
• Unlimited vacation days and PTO/sick days
• Generous home office setup reimbursement and annual learning & development stipend

If you don’t meet 100% of the above qualifications, you should still seriously consider applying! No matter what you come in knowing, you'll be learning new things all the time and we'll be here to help! Our team still has a lot to learn and if you join us, we would love for you to learn and grow with us!