Report to: Studio Art Director

Studio Overview

EA Create is a collective of content production teams partnering with EA Studios game teams to achieve outstanding visuals, audio and technology. Our teams comprise of exceptional artists, engineers, technicians, designers and development directors. Worldwide, we combine our teams to form a global group of extraordinary individuals fueled by imagination and a unified passion for creating amazing visuals, sound and experiences. We are a diverse team, creatively motivated through collaboration, culture and craft.

Illuminating the worlds and characters in our games, the EA Create Lighting team is experienced in lighting in-game, cinematics and narrative sequences.

Lighting Overview

Lighters add lighting to games to create atmosphere and add realism, tone, and depth to a scene. Lighters create visually balanced elements that help game artists to produce more convincing imagery and environments. They need to use technical skill and their aesthetic vision to create images that not only look good but are easy to render.

Lighters make sure there is consistency in lighting, color balance, and mood between the elements of a shot or scene in the game. Lighters ensure the CG looks photo-realistic. Lighters emphasize drama or narrative, and also establish and clarify location, weather, time of day, etc. You will respect and follow an established design theme for a sequence or project. You can refer to the relevant production designs and apply that visual style as faithfully as possible while maintain continuity throughout the scene and game.

Lighting Director Role Description

As the lighting director, you will use your comprehensive knowledge and aesthetic vision of the lighting domain to guide the entire lighting team. You will rely on your knowledge of what’s happening in the industry to guide development of lighting domain. You will share the necessary steps to reach the aesthetic and technical goals. You will provide guidance, strategy and direct the team to grow above and beyond.

You will support art direction by providing practical solutions. You will use your craft knowledge to lead projects and coordinate with partners. You may also take direct reports and act as people manager, support the career growth of the lighting artist.

You will establish the lighting goals with the Art and Technical Directors and working with the Development Directors on delivery plans. You will be part of a team that works collaboratively in an iterative design process; break down deliverables; share regular updates and deliver on commitments.

Lighting Director Requirement

• Excellent knowledge of lighting, shading and PBR for real-time and offline including optimization for performance and quality (e.g. UE4, Marmoset, Vray, Arnold, Redshift)
• The skills to analyze and deconstruct images artistically and technically.
• Experience of reference capture and building photoreal CGI (GI, Reflectance etc.)
• HDRI workflows from capture to implementation of shading and sky boxes.
• Experience of grading and post production in real time engines.
• Experience implementing lighting and shading in DCC (e.g. Maya, 3dsmax, Houdini, Substance).
• A broad interest in aspects of visual art outside of video and computer games.

About EA

At Electronic Arts, we exist to Inspire the World to Play. We create extraordinary new game experiences for our millions of players everywhere by bringing together talented people that combine creativity, innovation, and passion. We know that our strength lies in the diversity of our people. We immerse our employees into an inclusive culture, and provide opportunities for learning and leading that allow them to do the most impactful and rewarding work of their careers. We put our people first. We provide comprehensive benefit packages with a focus on health and wellbeing to support your needs and help you balance your career and personal life. We provide access to dynamic and collaborative work environments, opportunities to connect and contribute through our Employee Resource Groups, and support for a balanced life with paid time off and maternity and paternity leave, plus free video games and so much more! Electronic Arts is an equal opportunity employer. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, genetic information, religion, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, marital status, family status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Electronic Arts also makes workplace accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities as required by applicable law.