Thank you for your interest in joining the creative development pipeline behind Patriam: Saga of Roljar. Patriam Studios is actively expanding its remote interactive production department within New Zealand. We are seeking a highly motivated, artistically precise, and technically driven Junior Character Animator to join our team. This entry-level position is engineered specifically for an aspiring animator who wants to transition from foundational academic studies or personal portfolio creation into a commercial game production pipeline.
If you possess a deep fascination with human mechanics, martial arts, theatrical performance, and the technical art workflows required to breathe expressive life into historical and mythological figures, this role offers an unprecedented opportunity to gain real industry experience and professional mentorship.
The Project: Patriam: Saga of Roljar
Patriam: Saga of Roljar is an ambitious indie title that seamlessly weaves rugged historical authenticity with rich, grounded, and terrifying mythological elements. The human and humanoid cast of Patriam navigate a harsh, untamed frontier shaped by combat, political survival, and ancient traditions. In our universe, characters are not merely static meshes or passive background elements; they are highly dynamic entities equipped with distinctive combat styles, cultural body language, and visceral battlefield mechanics.
To achieve this level of immersion, our animation department prioritizes weight, momentum, realistic weight distribution, and performance-driven personality. As a junior character animator, you will dive deep into the mechanics of human locomotion, weapon handling, and physical storytelling. You will work under the direct supervision of our senior animation leads, receiving iterative feedback and technical support while directly contributing production-ready keyframe data to the core build of the game.
Job Overview : Junior Character Animator
| Attribute | Details |
| Position Title | Junior Character Animator |
| Company Name | Patriam Studios |
| Location | New Zealand (Remote / Work-from-Home) |
| Job Type | Full-Time / Entry-Level Track |
| Core Focus Area | Humanoid Locomotion, Expressive Combat & Cinematic Performance |
| Primary Deliverables | Keyframe combat cycles, locomotive blend spaces, and narrative vignettes |
| Key Software Toolsets | Autodesk Maya, Blender, MotionBuilder, Unreal Engine / Unity |
Job Summary
Patriam Studios is proud to announce new creative openings representing premiere new zealand jobs for entry-level digital artists. Operating entirely within a structured remote framework across New Zealand, the Junior Character Animator will be responsible for bringing our diverse cast of warriors, historical figures, and mythological humanoids to life. This role centers on crafting highly believable performances that demonstrate an advanced understanding of physical weight, center of mass, realistic weapon weight propagation, and emotional character interaction.
By utilizing comprehensive real-world reference gathering, historical martial arts references, and advanced digital animation toolsets, you will turn static 3D models into compelling inhabitants of the game world. This position serves as an accelerated launchpad, pairing your raw creative talent with real-world shipping constraints, engine implementation tasks, and rigorous, studio-grade creative feedback.
Detailed Role Specification and Project Requirements
1. Core Animation Responsibilities
As a junior team member, your day-to-day production tasks will span the entire life cycle of character asset movement. Your primary focus will be generating gameplay-ready animations that communicate impact, historical accuracy, and narrative intent.
- Locomotion Set Development: Craft comprehensive movement matrices for various character archetypes. This includes seamless transitions between idle states, tactical crouching, walks, sprints, directional turns, and sudden stops across irregular terrain, ensuring feet lock perfectly to the ground without sliding.
- Visceral Combat Sequences: Design and execute high-impact combat animations, including sword strikes, shield blocks, archery draws, historical martial arts maneuvers, hit reactions, stumbles, and dramatic death performances that reflect physical exhaustion and impact.
- Cinematic & Narrative Expression: Create expressive character performances for dialogue sequences, interactive vignettes, and cinematic moments, focusing heavily on upper body posture, hand gestures, and secondary animations that reveal a character’s emotional state or social status.
- Technical Asset Integration: Import, test, and debug your animation assets directly within the project’s game engine, ensuring that root motion transitions, blend spaces, and frame-accurate state changes align perfectly with combat and movement mechanics.
2. Technical Requirements & Engineering Competencies
Character animation demands a heightened balance of pure artistic performance and strict technical discipline. We are looking for candidates who demonstrate baseline competency in the following technical areas:
- Digital Animation Mastery: Proficient foundational knowledge of keyframe animation within industry-standard Digital Content Creation (DCC) software—primarily Autodesk Maya or Blender.
- Human Anatomy & Mechanics: A strong portfolio demonstrating a clear understanding of how the skeletal and muscular systems function across human movements, with specific attention to hip driving forces and the preservation of body mass during intense actions.
- Rigging and Weight Comprehension: A functional understanding of humanoid skeletal hierarchies (such as HumanIK or biped rigs), joint constraints, forward kinematics (FK), inverse kinematics (IK), and skin-weight deformation limits. You must be able to identify and communicate technical rig issues to our technical art team.
- Game Engine Implementation: Basic familiarity with engine-side animation systems (Unreal Engine’s Control Rig/Sequencer or Unity’s Mecanim architecture), including setting up basic state machines and managing collision boundaries during movement.
Working within a Remote New Zealand Framework
Remote Autonomy Built on Local Synergy:
Patriam Studios functions as a distributed network of elite developers. While we embrace a 100% remote working configuration that grants you the autonomy to build an optimized home studio environment, this position is strictly reserved for applicants currently living inside New Zealand. Maintaining a localized team layout allows us to execute unified daily stand-ups, preserve real-time feedback loops without time-zone lag, and actively inject growth and economic equity into the growing domestic New Zealand games ecosystem.
What We Provide to Our Junior Talent:
- Structured One-on-One Mentorship: You will not operate in a vacuum. You will receive structured, supportive, and direct critique from veteran animation directors who are invested in accelerating your professional development.
- Studio Pipeline Literacy: Gain practical knowledge regarding version control protocols (Git/Perforce), production tracking ecosystems (Jira/Trello), asset naming conventions, and scalable optimization methodologies.
- Market-Aligned Financial Compensation: To support your career launch, this junior position offers a competitive entry-level salary structure fully aligned with New Zealand industry standards, typically tracking between NZD $55,000 and $70,000 per annum for full-time production tracks, or equivalent competitive hourly allocations for structured contract agreements.
Application & Portfolio Submission Guidelines
To apply for the position of Junior Character Animator, please compile and submit a comprehensive digital application packet adhering to the following structural requirements:
1. The Gameplay Animation Showreel: Provide a direct URL to your online portfolio (ArtStation, personal website, SyncSketch, or Vimeo). Your reel must prominently feature humanoid character animation. We heavily favor reels that display clear physical weight, realistic body mechanics, historical weapon handling, and timing over highly stylized or floaty sequences.
2. Technical Breakdown Elements: Where possible, include a technical overlay of your work, showing the underlying rig, motion paths, or wireframes to illustrate your understanding of arc control, spacing, and keyframe cleanliness.
3. Targeted Cover Letter: Submit a concise professional letter detailing your artistic background, your specific methodologies for analyzing real-world reference or live-action martial arts footage, and why you are drawn to the rugged, medieval aesthetic of Patriam: Saga of Roljar.
We look forward to reviewing your unique technical vision and welcoming a fresh creative engine into our studio framework. Help us forge the human reality and dramatic presence of Patriam: Saga of Roljar. Apply today!
