Technical Artist

Description

Role Overview:

With a foundation as a 3D generalist, you've become a seasoned Technical Artist with a solid technical understanding of Maya, Max, Photoshop and 3D engines, including proficient use of programing and scripting languages, you’re comfortable tinkering with, maintaining and providing support for every art tool at your disposal. A creative problem solver: impossible is your favorite kind of possible, and you welcome every new problem as a chance to flex your creative muscles to find solutions. Inspiring: with a self-driven mindset and positive attitude, you invigorate and inspire the artists you support by providing clear and constructive feedback

Key Responsibilities:

• Build, manage, support and maintain tools and pipelines and provide technical support for artists as needed, across different artistic disciplines like environments, characters, etc.
• Drive development of the asset creation pipeline to ensure assets are easily integrated into a game without sacrificing overall artistic vision or exceeding the project’s technical budgets.
• Design and create custom tools to improve the efficiency of the art team in all areas of the art production pipeline. Troubleshoot and debug issues in internal tools and pipelines.
• Work with R&D on developing new features, mock up features in external programs or tweak shader code, give feedback to R&D, and experiment with and troubleshoot features as they are added
• Coordinate, execute and help drive the Art teams' most demanding and critical projects forward
• Work closely with lead artists to spec, implement, and continuously improve tools based on desired production practices and workflow.
• Investigate new techniques and implement them within the team. Stay up-to-date in changes in technology, in terms of console hardware, art packages, and new asset creation techniques.
• Mentor and support other tech artists, critique their work and help raise the quality of art production across the boar
• Liaise between Art teams and various stakeholders to provide support for interdisciplinary efforts
• Interface with key stakeholders and team leads when assessing and completing tasks and help promote strategic visions for projects
• Material creation - Making materials for characters, environment assets, effects etc, anything that is overly complex or technical
• Optimization - Use diagnostic tools to examine current content and identify areas for improvement
• Create new art assets as required to get the job done.
• Set up and maintain the art production workflow and maximize the artists’ development process.
• Ensure artists have the tools they need to create assets efficiently and to specification.
• Set up the systems of production and solve problems as they arise, alleviate technical bottlenecks for the art team, and free up the asset team to focus on asset creation.
• Document all tools on intranet and educate artists on their use.

Key Competencies & Skills:

• Four  to Sixyears of game production experience. Minimum three years experience involving both art and programming with at least 2 shipped games as a TA.
• Degree in a relevant visual art or technical subject highly desired.
• Extensive experience and strong understanding of game engines like Unreal, Unity, Cryteck. Excellent knowledge on various game development tools.Strong scripting and plug-in writing skills. Proficiency in programming languages like C++, scripting languages like MEL or Python, Maya API and various SDKs. Max Scripting and HLSL or shader programming experience is a
  
• plus. Ability to create highly polished and functional UI for all Maya & Max side scripts and tools
• Must have strong technical skills, including experience in software design & implementation and knowledge of math & physics theories. Demonstrable understanding of graphics-related programming languages.
• Advanced 3DSMax or Maya experience, and the ability to create competent art in Maya & Max. Experience with various software packages including Photoshop, Zbrush/Mudbox. Familiarity with shaders a plus
• Ability to communicate clearly with both technical and art departments, articulating both the needs of the art team and the limitations of tech.