Skydance Animation Senior Crowds Artist

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.

Skydance Animation seeks 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.

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 Render Man

Language Profile High English level desirable;
Spanish a plus

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, 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.

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:

• 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 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.

• Behavior Implementation: Author, apply, and execute high‑fidelity crowd behavioral simulation graphs on final production shots, maintaining strict adherence to studio quality guidelines.
• Independent Problem Solving: Demonstrate exceptional technical debugging skills, isolating and resolving macro pipeline issues or specific shot technical bottlenecks independently.
• R&D Tracking: Stay continuously updated on evolving artistic methodologies, technological industry trends, and third‑party software tools that improve creative output.
• Artist Support: Work collaboratively alongside the crowd simulation team, providing technical support, daily troubleshooting guidance, and instruction to foster long‑term professional growth.
• Director Alignment: Follow creative guidance from the Crowds Lead and Supervisor, translating 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 continuous development of custom layout and crowd simulation tools.

Skydance is looking for a hybrid artist who couples advanced technical understanding of procedural animation networks with an eye for natural movement, weight, and layout composition.

• Industry Longevity: 5+ years of professional production experience…