Insomniac Games is looking for a Lead Environment Artist that maintains and helps establish quality and artistic consistency of environment art. They set an example for the production team regarding the creation of art assets. They implement new production methods to improve performance and efficiency and act as a liaison with the other development teams.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following:
- Builds environment art assets and locations with an eye for composition and details requiring minimal oversight and delivered on time and at quality
- Maintains consistent aesthetic and technical quality in all environments
- Maintains consistent style under the direction of the Art Director and Lead Environment Artist
- Works closely with level designers to Greymesh levels that work for design and gameplay and follow the aesthetic and technical guidelines set by the Lead
- Works closely with the tools department to implement new production methods
- Participates in the planning of project environments
- Organizes Greymesh assets for Outsourcing and maintains communication with the outsourcing team
- Works with internal pipeline to Imposter distant assets
- Documents pipelines/processes to improve efficiency
- Other duties may be assigned
Responsible for overseeing and/or creating the following environment art components:
- Design roughs
- Visual prototype levels
- Technology test levels
- Greymesh Geometry
- Medium detail (asset) geometry
- High detail (normal map generation) geometry
- Instance composition and layout
- Textures
- Surfaces/Materials
- Collision
- Adhering to gameplay metrics
- Zone/Region setup and implementation
- Level optimization (including memory, GPU frame cost, CPU frame cost, disk size, streaming etc.)
Additional Production Responsibilities:
- Tool proposals
- Tool beta testing
- Assigning bugs and verifying bug fixes
- Working with concept/polish team to ensure proper production quality
- Shader writing when necessary
Supervisory Responsibilities: This position assists with the training of environment art team members and assists with problem solving for new technology. Schedules and guides a small team of environment artists. Mentors more junior staff and interns.
Education and/or Experience:
- Fifth year college or university program certificate; or five to seven years related experience and/or training; or equivalent combination of education and experience.
- Expert understanding of Maya (or Max), Photoshop, Z-brush or equivalent.
- Expert understanding of generating normal maps from high poly models.
- Proficient in texture creation with Photoshop, Substance Designer, or equivalent.
- Advanced understanding of node based shader networks.
- Advanced understanding of at least one current gen level editor.
- Understanding of source control via Perforce or equivalent.
- Understanding of Microsoft Office Suite.
Other Skills: Excellent foundations skills, including composition, design, and color theory. Strong traditional painting skills Ability to create models and shaders for a range of art directions, from photorealistic to stylized. Ability to meet deadlines under tight schedules. Willingness to receive direction and work closely with a team. Must play games or understand the goal of a level design.
If this is the opportunity that you have been looking for, we'd like to hear from you. Please click the Apply button above to submit your application.
