• Contact
  • Resume
  • Home
Menu

Ben Freedman

Character Animation / Technical Animation
  • Contact
  • Resume
  • Home

Download Resume

Objective

Breathing life into virtual worlds by creating the finest Player, NPC and Boss experiences possible.  Champion my teammates through the ups and downs of production.  Share my passion and enthusiasm with any team of which I am a part.  Always push the bar of excellence, and seek to elevate the conversation.  Consider "why" as well as "how".  Do everything within my power to help create the best games imaginable.

Qualifications

Thorough usage of animation and design principles.   Passion for arriving at the most creative and successful visual solutions possible.  Strong aversion to settling on generic, uninspired results.  Emphasis on effective, respectful dialogue with colleagues, and desire to absorb and leverage the breadth of their knowledge as well as advocate for their points of view.  Eagerness to draw constructive meaning from error.  Thoughtful contribution to collaborative working environments.

Experience


Bungie - Senior Technical Animator
(Sep 2023 - Present)

  • Individual Contributor:

    • Systemic Layered Animation Content

    • Gameplay Animation (general)

    • State Machine Setup, Layer structures, Systemic

    • Anims (Tiger Engine/Grognok)

    • Multi-Part Characters / Attached object secondary animations.

    • Data, Variables, Scripting and Expressions (blended multi-layer performance drivers)

    • Combatant Branching and Component/Data Setup

    • Technical support and investigatory tasks for animation team / Technical animation debugging

    • Collaboration with Engineering, Design, Technical Animation and Technical Art (systems/content/workflow)

    • Tools Proposals/Knowledge-share (when appropriate)

    • Documentation Misc.

  • Manager:

    • Personnel Development Processes and Leveling Proposals

    • Report Feedback / Reviews

    • Manager cohort rituals

Probably Monsters - Lead Animator - Incubation (Unreal)
(Feb 2019 - Sep 2023)

  • Manager:

    • Planning and Risk Assessment

    • Team Management / Briefs / Documentation / Outsourcing

    • Motion Aesthetics and Content Pipelines

    • Motion Capture Scoping and Planning

    • Hiring Manager

  • Individual Contributor:

    • Gameplay / Cinematic / Conceptual Animation

    • State Machine Architecture & Blend Trees (Unreal Engine)

    • Montage Markup / Notify Workflow / Traversal Design

    • Blueprint Scripting / Prototyping (incubation)

    • Combat Design Pitches, Iteration and Tuning

    • Collaboration with Engineering, Systems Design and Technical Art

    • Coordinating with Gameplay/Tools Engineers on Character Performance/Content and workflow.

    • Character Setup (Using auto-rigger)


ArenaNet Inc. - Senior Technical Animator - Incubation
(
Oct 2018 - Feb 2019)

  • State Machine Architecture & Blend Trees

  • Collaboration with Gameplay Engineering, Engine Team and Systems Design

  • Working directly with engine team on editor feature requirements and authoring workflow

  • Markup/Notify Editing / Workflow

  • Traversal Aesthetics and Design

  • Experimentation with Motion Fields / Motion Matching

  • Motion Capture Scoping and Planning


ArenaNet Inc. -  Senior Character Animator - Incubation
(
Feb 2016 - Oct 2018)

  • Player / Creature Animation and Animation Aesthetics

  • Traversal Aesthetics & Design / Tuning

  • Coordination with Systems Design and Gameplay Engineering 

  • Animation Markup Workflow

  • State Machine Architecture / Blending

  • Engine Tech Request and Planning

  • Motion Capture Scoping and Planning

 
Motiga Inc.  -   Senior Character Animator  -  Gigantic
(
Feb 2013 - Feb 2016)

  • Player Character, NPC animation

  • Marketing Cinematics (Pre-Prod - Closed Beta)

  • Anim Trees and Markup Tuning (UE3)

 

ArenaNet Inc.  -   Character Animator  -  Guild Wars 2
(
Oct 2008 - Feb 2013)

  • Player Character, NPC and Boss Animation  (Early Production - Live Content)

  • Principal Artist - Live Content Teams

 

Airtight Games  -  Animation Intern  -  Dark Void -
2008

  • In Game Cinematic Block-In

Nintendo  - QA / Tester - Various

  • Game Testing and Quality Assurance

Education 

Digipen Institute of Technology

  Bachelor of Fine Arts in Production Animation

Grand Valley State University

Computer Science Major

Awards

Robert B. Mcmillen Scholarship for the Arts

Expertise

  • Primary:  Character Animation / Mockup, State machine / Blueprint Scripting / Systems Prototype, Character Setup

  • General:  Hiring Manager / Planning and Ideation, Drawing/Painting, Character Setup, Workflow

Skills

  • Autodesk MAYA, MAX             Animation, General Modeling

  • UNREAL ENGINE 4/5              Animation, State Machine, Blueprints Prototyping

  • Adobe Photoshop                   Painting / Drawing

  • After Effects / Premiere          General Editing / Ripomatic

  • General Productivity               Tracking, Source Control, Sheets

References

Matthew Wingler linkedin.com/in/matthewwingler/
Evan Lesh              
linkedin.com/in/evan-l-b9087a24
Omar Amador:       
linkedin.com/in/omaramador                                 
Thomas Vinas         linkedin.com/in/thomas-vinas                                 
Robert Djordjevich  linkedin.com/in/rdjordjevich
Nick Wiley:            
linkedin.com/pub/nick-wiley/25/85a/384            
Brian Lawver:        
linkedin.com/pub/brian-lawver/30/4b/34a
Jazno Francoeur:    linkedin.com/in/jazno

Interests

Prototyping personal games, Playing Games, Reading / Non-Fiction, Animated Film / TV, Drawing / Painting, Singing, Paintball, Running / Soccer, Gardening / Growing fig trees, Watching Movies, Watching BAD movies with friends.

Download Resume