Rouge Studios

Rouge Studios is seeking an experienced Cinematic Animator to join our dynamic cinematics team. As an individual contributor, you will create high-quality in-game cinematics and narrative gameplay experiences using motion capture, performance capture, and hand-keyed animation. Working closely with artists and leads, you will bring compelling characters, performances, and story moments to life through expressive, polished animation. We are passionate about storytelling and pushing the boundaries of animation technology. The ideal candidate will have a great understanding of animation fundamentals, body mechanics and how they relate to game cinematic animation.

Responsibilities: 

• Refine animations as needed to get the best quality animation within the timeline.
• Deliver high quality motion capture cleanup and key-framed animations with an emphasis on realism and emotion.
• Collaborate with leads in a dailies style critique environment, find optimal solutions, and address basic issues as they arise.
• Collaborate supervisor, lead, and the rest of the team, in the creation of outstanding cinematic experiences.
• Contribute to the enhancement of the animation pipeline.
• Working with Face solving technology and facial animation techniques such as Faceware.
• Understanding of animation implementation in a game engine, including the ability to troubleshoot issues.
• Write high-quality, well-formatted documentation for animators and other technical artists to easily reference.

Requirements: 

• Minimum of 3-5 years of experience in Games, Cinematics, or VFX with a robust portfolio showcasing expertise in hyper - realistic Facial and Body animation.
• Strong facial animation skills and performance‑driven animation abilities.
• High-level experience cleaning and polishing performance capture data.
• Strong ability to animate hard surface objects and non human characters or objects.
• Strong understanding of cinematic systems and scripted narrative gameplay.
• Experience animating cinematics for video games.
• Passionate about storytelling, and games.
• Technical Skills: Proficient with motion‑capture, performance‑capture, and hand‑keyed animation workflows.
• Software Proficiency: Highly skilled in Maya and MotionBuilder.
• Software Proficiency: Knowledge and experience in Faceware or similar programs.
• Game Engine Experience: Familiarity with game engines, such as Unreal, Unity or bespoke engines.

Salary: $70,000–$110,000 per year. Range depends on experience, education, and qualifications.

Location: Onsite. Los Angeles, California

Start Date: Late September 2026

Contract: Initial 3–4 week contract, with a strong likelihood of extension for up to one year based on project needs, performance, and business requirements.