Project: Vampires: Bloodlord Rising
We’re looking for an experienced 3D Technical Animator with deep knowledge of Unreal Engine 5’s ALS (Advanced Locomotion System), Animation Blueprint ABP, Locomotion. This role focuses on improving the animation pipeline for player and NPC locomotion, ensuring smooth, natural, and believable character movement in-game.
Responsibilities
- Diagnose and fix issues with the ALS system for the main character (highest priority).
- Apply similar fixes to NPCs, ensuring their walking, turning, and IK systems look natural and fluid.
- Recreate short locomotion/combat animation sequences from scratch if needed (not cinematic anims).
- Adjust and optimize animation blueprints, blending, overlays, and logic inside ALS.
- Collaborate closely with the in-house animator to integrate their sequences properly into ALS.
- Ensure animations remain consistent across male/female skeletons.
Technical Details
- Animations: Mostly keyframed (not mocap), created in Blender and iClone.
- Skeleton: ALS skeleton (not UE5 mannequin).
- Tools in use: Blender (for keyframing, cleanup, and export).
- Main challenge: Current animations look fine standalone, but once inside ALS, issues arise — e.g., janky turns, broken IK, proportion problems, and blending inconsistencies.
Requirements
- Strong expertise with UE5 Animation Blueprints and ALS system.
- Proven experience solving animation blending, IK, and locomotion logic issues in UE.
- Ability to diagnose whether problems come from logic or animation incompatibility, and fix accordingly.
- Experience recreating short locomotion/attack sequences where required.
- Availability: 8h per day (CET time zone), Monday to Friday (CET time zone).
- Good English-speaking skills.
Nice to Have
- Previous experience on projects with NPC-heavy animation systems.
- Familiarity with Blender and/or iClone rigs.
As part of your application, please include a link to your animation blueprints in Unreal Engine to showcase your technical animation skills. This is a key factor in the selection process. You can share a link to your portfolio or a Google Drive folder containing your work.