Senior 3D Animator
Summary
Hands-on Senior 3D Animator owning character and gameplay animation for mobile live-service games: setting animation style, personally keyframing and polishing content, implementing in Unity (Mecanim/Animator), optimizing for mobile performance, and mentoring other animators. Core tools are Maya/3ds Max/Blender and Unity.
About Us
Liquidnitro Games is India’s flagship live
services and game production company, founded by industry veterans with a
proven track record in producing massively successful games and live services.
We offer world-class game development expertise to power creativity, growth,
and profitability in games for companies, studios, and publishers worldwide.
What’s in it?
As a Senior 3D Animator, you will own the
quality of character and gameplay animation across our mobile games. Partnering
with the Art Director and Art Lead, you will set the animation style, lead
animation for key characters, features, and live-service events, and mentor
other animators. This is a hands-on role: alongside setting direction, you will
personally animate a significant share of the content yourself. You will work
closely with Game Designers, Engineers, Technical Artists, and 3D Artists to
bring characters and gameplay to life, making sure every animation feels great,
reads clearly on mobile, and runs efficiently in Unity.
Responsibilities
· Stay hands-on: personally
keyframe, polish, and deliver character and gameplay animations every sprint,
not just review and direct others.
· Lead animation for major
characters, features, and live-service events - idles, locomotion, attacks,
reactions, celebrations, emotes, and cinematics - from blocking to shipped.
· Set and maintain the animation
style, timing, and personality of characters so they stay consistent across the
game.
· Create gameplay animations with
strong game feel, clear readability, and responsive timing that supports game
design.
· Work with Technical Artists on
rigs, skinning, and controls, and give clear feedback to improve them.
· Implement and test animations
in Unity - Animator controllers, state machines, blend trees, and events - and
fix in-engine issues.
· Optimize animations for mobile
performance, keeping file size, bone count, and memory within budget.
· Define animation standards,
naming conventions, and documentation for the team.
· Mentor mid-level and junior
animators, review their work, and give clear, actionable feedback.
· Estimate animation scope, plan
tasks with production, and deliver on schedule for live-service cadences.
Requirements
· 10-12+ years of professional
experience as a 3D Animator in game development, with at least 4 shipped titles
(mobile preferred) where you owned major animation areas.
· Outstanding reel showing strong
character and gameplay animation, with a clear grasp of timing, weight, posing,
and appeal.
· Expert-level proficiency in
Maya, 3ds Max, or Blender for keyframe animation.
· Strong understanding of
animation principles applied to both stylized and gameplay-driven animation.
· Solid experience implementing
and optimizing animations in Unity, including Mecanim and the Animator system.
· Proven ability to define an
animation style, not just match one, and keep it consistent at scale across a
live game.
· Excellent communication and
leadership skills, with experience mentoring animators and bridging art,
design, and engineering.
· Proactive, self-driven,
detail-oriented, and comfortable making decisions in a fast-paced live-service
environment.
Bonus
· Experience working on casual,
mid-core, social, or live-service mobile titles.
· Rigging skills, or experience
with tools like Advanced Skeleton, mGear, or Unity Animation Rigging.
· Experience with facial
animation, motion capture cleanup, or cinematic and marketing animation.
· Basic VFX or 2D animation
skills to support animation polish.
· Familiarity with AI-assisted
ideation used responsibly to accelerate exploration while maintaining strong
artistic ownership and quality.