Junior Technical Artist, £13,000-£16,000
Founded in 1990, our client is now one of the most stable and respected development studios in the world today. Currently boasting six distinct divisions, the company has come a long way from its roots as a well known developer of family games. Today, the different divisions are working on mature titles, serious games, downloadable and short-session games and their middleware and game engine. Our client has also pioneered their own initiative, which aims to help budding indie developers find their way to market. In addition to this diversified portfolio of interests, our client are heavily involved in working with education and government for the long-term benefit of the UK games development industry.
One of the most exciting and demanding challenges in modern game development is building bridges between increasingly complex art and code. The technical artist provides this vital link and combines an understanding of tools and technologies along with a keen artistic eye.
One of the most exciting and demanding challenges in modern game development is building bridges between increasingly complex art and code. The technical artist provides this vital link and combines an understanding of tools and technologies along with a keen artistic eye.
This Junior Technical Artist role will be for their Research & Development Art Team, prototyping and benchmarking the latest art techniques and supporting all their games in development. The successful applicant is expected to develop in the role and would be provided with the support network to learn all they need to know.
Specific requirements for this role:
The following describes the full spectrum of expectations for a technical artist. Junior positions would not be expected to have experience in all of these areas.
Directly reporting to: R&D Art Director
Duties:
• The evaluation of art creation pipelines to assess their effectiveness in the studio’s game development processes.
• The creation of tools and scripts to improve art pipelines in the studio. This can include Python, MEL or Z-Scripts and may extend to full tool creation within an applications API or in some cases windows based environments.
• The creation of pixel and vertex shaders for use in R&D and game development.
• The design and implementation of new processes in areas such as lighting, surfacing (shaders and materials), post processing and special effects.
• To document and communicate pipelines and technology updates to all relevant parties.
• Create and iteratively develop game assets from inception to final review on the target hardware within the game engine using appropriate tools (BlitzTech Tools).
Essentials:
• A knowledge of applicable content creation applications such as Maya, Photoshop and Zbrush.
• Some knowledge of game development tools and pipelines in such environments as Unreal Engine, CryEngine, Gamebryo or BlitzTech.
• Some knowledge of scripting
• An understanding of techniques to accurately simulate surfaces in game. This may include texture, lighting and shaders.
Traditional Art Skills:
• Appreciation and ability to make good fundamental artistic judgements.
• An understanding of the basic principles of lighting.
• Ability to develop and communicate ideas and concepts in a visual manner.
Self Management and Organisation:
• Ability and willingness to work to a set brief and to deadlines.
Teamwork and Communication:
• To maintain a good level of communication with all relevant parties at all times.
• Ability and willingness to fit into a creative team environment.
Professional attitude and work ethic:
• A willingness and ability to learn is essential including the ability to accept constructive feedback.
• A consistent professional approach to naming, filing, backing up and archiving of all work in accordance with company and team policy.
This post is very much orientated to lighting and shaders with no mention of characters or rigging whatsoever. Through my research so far it seems that a technical artist is in fact the wrong title for what I am interested in doing, and I am much more on the artistic side than the coding side. However where lighting is not being talked about I do feel like I am on the right track with getting experience in pipelines and engines, started looking at scripting, I just need MORE time and practice to get on with it rather than stressing about unhelpful essays. in terms of the blue section I feel quite confident that I could fulfill this.
