Salman Hashmi

About

18-year game/real-time animation veteran with shipped AAA experience (e.g., Just Cause 4) and credits across titles like Borderlands 3, The Outer Worlds, Bloodlines 2, and Disintegration. Has served as Animation Director (Decoy Games), leading internal/external teams and defining gameplay/cinematic style, with deep hands-on expertise in mocap + hand-key pipelines, UE integration, and performance-focused iteration in-engine.

Experience

Education

Key Strengths

• Animation direction and style ownership (created gameplay/cinematic style; led internal/external teams)
• Gameplay animation tuned for responsiveness (frame constraints, segmentation, start/cancel trigger windows)
• Strong in-engine validation loop (side-by-side playtesting with dev team; iterative refinement)
• UE animation integration and blend tuning across state machines with Maya iteration
• Pipeline problem-solving (resolved rig scale mismatch via baking, rescaling to 1, reimport/reexport)
• Shipped real-time cinematics on a major title (Just Cause 4) with performance-driven timing/frame tradeoffs
• Cross-discipline performance optimization (environment/LOD coordination; camera-locked cuts; lighting/FX automation)
• Mocap planning-to-polish workflow (shot lists, actor sizing, cleanup/retargeting, Maya final polish)
• Shipped AAA game animation experience (Outer Worlds, Borderlands 3, Just Cause 4)
• End-to-end mocap cleanup and polish (layers, fingers, facial) for in-game and cutscenes
• Strong gameplay-readability focus (poses readable from player camera at all angles)
• Animation transition/blend tuning to match player input while staying smooth
• Foot sliding/jitter elimination and cleanup in Maya for production-ready exports
• Tight iteration loop between DCC (Maya) and in-game testing to validate transitions/holds
• Cross-functional collaboration with developers to balance animation quality vs runtime performance (e.g., cutting frames/retiming)