Mutant Arm Studios is an up-and-coming independent developer, based along the beautiful Cascade mountain range, in sunny Bend, Oregon. We are a fun-sized group of highly skilled developers, led by an Industry proven AAA Design team, working with one of the industry’s most prominent publishing partners.

At Mutant Arm Studios, one of the core pillars of our company is to hire team members who are game developers FIRST, and specialists second. Our goal is to build and maintain a focused group of game-makers, who are looking to approach game development in a creative and holistic way, and truly connect with players.

We’ve done it all before, and our mission now is simple: “Let’s make some seriously cool games, with some seriously cool people.”

THIS IS NOT AN ENTRY OR MID-LEVEL POSITION. Please submit a demo reel with your application

The Senior FX Artist plays a very important role on the Mutant Arm team. We are strong believers that, not only are VFX an integral aspect of defining the visual style of a game, but also critical in the Game-play prototyping phase, to test and solidify our core gameplay feedback loop. VFX play a huge part in whether or not it “feels” good to interact with objects and characters in our world, long before we leave the grey-box phase of development.

The Senior VFX Artist will work closely with both Art Direction and Game Design Departments to create a visual language that helps communicate key gameplay mechanics, as well as a tone and style, that feels right in the universe we’re creating.

This person will also help to define our VFX pipeline, our FX memory/performance budget and quality metrics, as well as help recruit and vet other potential FX candidates.

Skills and Qualifications:

Strong understanding of traditional art concepts, and animation fundamentals.
Expertise with the Unreal 4 Cascade and Materials tools, as well as some experience with Niagara.
Expert understanding of Adobe photoshop, After Effects, and at least one major 3D software package – Maya is a plus.
Understanding of, and experience with Houdini.
Must be able to ideate and iterate quickly and clearly during Prototyping and Viz Dev phases of development.
The ability to work in a broad range of styles, as well as the desire to create new ones!
A strong understanding of the effects of real-time VFX on performance, and how to implement creative optimization solutions without sacrificing visual quality.
Attention to detail is imperative!!
The ability to communicate succinctly and professionally with team members.
The ability to take direction, constructive criticism, and accept that not everything will make it into the game, in a professional manner. We try a LOT of new ideas and throw a LOT of things out here.

Requirements:

Must have at least 5 years in the Games Industry, with at least 1 AAA titles shipped.
The ability to mentor, and provide concise feedback for junior FX artists, as well as outsourcing partners.
A love of games is required! Be prepared to talk to us about what you did and did not love about various games!
A positive attitude!! We’re a smallish team of people who like games and like each other. One grumpy person can ruin it for everyone.

Mutant Arm Studios is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, pregnancy, age, sexual orientation, marital status, protected veteran status, medical condition or disability, or any other characteristic protected by law.