Skydance Animation offers a dynamic, inclusive, and ever-evolving studio culture where innovative ideas are openly welcomed and professional growth is actively fostered. Skydance Animation sit at the intersection of unique artistic creativity and major technological advancements, with a driving commitment to bold, immersive, and relevant storytelling. Spain jobs.
While all animation studios look to hire people who are creative and hardworking, Skydance Animation is specifically looking for pioneers. We seek individuals who want to push the limits of what the world’s most collaborative art form can achieve, and we provide those pioneers with the space, resources, and trust to build a world-class studio culture that is doing something genuinely different. Spain jobs.
Job Overview : Senior Crowds Technical Artist
| Operational Details | Position & Pipeline Information |
| Company | Skydance Animation |
| Location | Madrid, Spain (Hybrid Workspace) |
| Employment Type | Full-Time |
| Experience Level | Senior (5+ years industry experience) |
| Core Software Toolset | SideFX Houdini & Autodesk Maya |
| Rendering Architecture | Pixar RenderMan |
| Language Profile | High English level desirable; Spanish a plus |
The Opportunity as Senior Crowds Technical Artist
Skydance Animation is expanding its technical pipeline in Madrid. Skydance Animation is seeking an experienced, vision-driven Senior Crowds Technical Artist to serve as a key technical anchor for our crowd simulation department.
In this role (Senior Crowds Technical Artist), you will assist the Crowds Supervisor and Lead with both technical and creative approaches to assigned cinematic sequences. Your primary responsibility will be creating robust, highly optimized master crowd rigs and deploying them seamlessly to the broader crowd artistry team for shot-level production execution.
This position balances procedural asset design with hands-on shot implementation, making it ideal for a senior technical artist who loves solving complex spatial puzzles and mentoring other artists.
Scope of Work & Key Responsibilities as Crowds Technical Artist
As a Senior Crowds Technical Artist, your workflow will directly dictate the visual scale, complexity, and pipeline efficiency of the studio’s animated features. Your responsibilities span asset design, technical problem-solving, and cross-department collaboration:
1. Asset Setup, Ridding & Procedural Workflows
- Pipeline Architecture: Configure, test, and optimize specialized crowd assets and Houdini Digital Assets (HDAs) inside our existing production environment.
- Procedural Procedures: Systematically test and implement new crowd workflows and tools under the artistic supervision of the department Lead and Supervisor.
- Agent Development: Author a diverse range of optimized crowd agents—including bipeds, quadrupeds, props, and mechanical vehicles—engineered specifically for low-overhead, high-performance simulations.
2. Shot Execution & Technical Troubleshooting
- Behavior Implementation: Author, apply, and execute high-fidelity crowd behavioral simulation graphs on final production shots, maintaining strict adherence to the studio’s quality guidelines.
- Independent Problem Solving: Demonstrate exceptional technical debugging skills, isolating and resolving macro pipeline issues or specific shot technical bottlenecks completely independently.
- R&D Tracking: Stay continuously updated on evolving artistic methodologies, technological industry trends, and third-party software tools that can improve the studio’s creative output.
3. Department Collaboration & Mentorship
- Artist Support: Work collaboratively alongside the crowd simulation team, providing them with technical support, daily troubleshooting guidance, and instruction to foster their long-term professional growth.
- Director Alignment: Follow the creative guidance of the Crowds Lead and Supervisor, translating their artistic direction into technical execution.
- Animation Synchronization: Provide direct, hands-on technical assistance to the Character Animators, ensuring raw animation data smoothly retargets to crowd systems.
- Tool Iteration: Offer structured, actionable feedback to the department Technical Directors (TDs) to assist in the continuous development of custom layout and crowd simulation tools.
Position Requirements as Senior Crowds Technical Artist
Skydance is looking for a hybrid artist who couples an advanced technical understanding of procedural animation networks with an eye for natural movement, weight, and layout composition.
Must-Have Qualifications
- Industry Longevity: 5+ years of professional production experience within the VFX or animation industries, with at least 3+ years dedicated specifically to stylized animation pipelines.
- Houdini Crowd Expertise: Deep, expert-level operational knowledge of SideFX Houdini’s native Crowd System (including state machines, agent configuration, and steering behaviors).
- DCC Environment Literacy: Proven working knowledge of both Autodesk Maya and Houdini within active, high-volume production environments.
- Procedural Rendering: Direct production familiarity with procedural rendering workflows, specifically utilizing Pixar’s RenderMan.
- Feature Film Background: Demonstrated experience generating massive, high-quality crowd simulations explicitly for animated feature films.
- Full Pipeline Comprehension: A comprehensive, structural understanding of the entire 3D CG pipeline, tracking data and assets smoothly from modeling and rigging up through lighting and final rendering.
- Language Fluency: A professional, working proficiency in English is highly desirable; knowledge of Spanish is a valuable asset.
Strategic Overview & Fraud Alert
Skydance is a highly diversified media company founded by David Ellison in 2010 to create premium, event-level entertainment for global audiences. The studio brings immersive, expansive worlds to life across feature film, television, interactive gaming, and animation divisions.
Recruitment Security Notice:
Please be aware that fraudulent individuals occasionally attempt to impersonate the Skydance Talent Acquisition team online. Official communication from our studio will only originate from an authorized @skydance.com email address. If you receive suspicious correspondence, do not click any links or open attachments; please report the incident to our internal information security team immediately.
I’m still working on my website and my portfolio in I work full time at go to The Academy of the art University in California and San Francisco