Summary
As a Sr Environment artist, you possess a strong narrative artistic ability, bringing with you a solid understanding of composition, scale, proportions and modularity.
Your contributions will include establishing the bar for visual quality, narrative storytelling and asset efficiency that will set the tone for the product as a whole. You will create environments that meet the high level goals of both art and design.
If you are a thoughtful, collaborative, creative individual who thrives in a team-oriented environment, we believe you’d fit right in, and we’d love to hear from you!
Core Responsibilities
- Environment layouts. Work closely with design counterparts to establish scale and composition in grey-box form while meeting high level design and art goals.
- Kit development. Collaborate with production and art direction in the planning of world building asset rosters. Defining detailed asset lists to fully realize each unique region and POI of the game.
- When required, create proxy assets and Jira briefs for use in kit development. Establishing asset pipeline with OS partners.
- Model and texture a wide variety of prop and architectural assets, adhering to established art direction while considering technical constraints
- Create high quality, photorealistic textures using various tools and middleware.
- Mentoring and feedback for team members and co dev partners
- Establish, maintain and improve upon the asset pipeline from pre production through optimization.
- Narrative set dressing and world building in engine.
- Proactively identify issues of quality and performance. Be responsive in addressing and troubleshooting bugs related to graphics, performance and gameplay.
Core Qualifications:
- 6+ years of experience in the video games industry and at least one shipped AAA title.
- Expert skills in one of the leading modeling packages (3DS Max, Maya, Blender etc.) and Photoshop.
- Strong sense of scale, proportions and composition.
- Working knowledge of color theory and basic lighting techniques.
- Knowledge of physically based rendering (PBR) texture and material workflows.
- Strong problem-solving skills.
- Experience with modular asset creation and world building techniques.
- Excellent communication and cross departmental skills.
- Familiar with modern level editor workflows and practices.
- Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts, Game Art, or related field.
Plus If
- You have experience with Unreal Engine 5.
- Strong fundamental art skills with an eye for color, form, composition and narrative storytelling.
- Experience with photogrammetry pipeline.
- Experience with Gaea, World Machine or similar terrain generation software.
- Open World Experience.
Description
- Full-time job with benefits.
- Role is on-site in Santa Monica, CA.
- Office is located near downtown Santa Monica – near metro and freeways.
Join our talented team and play a crucial role in bringing our characters and creatures to life. Together, we will create animations that captivate players and enhance the overall gameplay experience. Apply now and lead our animation team as the Principal Animator with Absurd Ventures.
The base pay range for this position is $110,000 to $140,000 per year. Actual compensation is based on market location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. We also offer a competitive package of benefits including paid time off, sick time, company holidays, parental leave, medical/dental/vision insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, and 401(k) to regular full-time employees. Certain roles may also be eligible for bonus and equity.
About Absurd Ventures
Absurd Ventures is a media company creating new IP across all platforms and for all formats. Absurd Ventures is building narrative worlds, creating characters, and writing stories for a variety of genres, without regard to medium, to be produced for live-action and animation; video games and other interactive content; books, graphic novels, and scripted podcasts.
