Founded in 1998, Retro Studios is a wholly owned subsidiary of Nintendo Company, Ltd. Retro is a state-of-the-art game development studio, working in conjunction with Nintendo to bring award-winning games to Nintendo's cutting-edge next-generation platforms. Retro Studios is located in beautiful Austin, Texas. With rolling hills, scenic waterways, abundant wildlife, vibrant music and film scenes, and a laid-back cosmopolitan culture, Austin is a dynamic city with an excellent quality of life. Austin's sunny weather also supports a great range of outdoor activities, providing plenty of venues for top-notch game developers to recharge and unwind.
DESCRIPTION OF DUTIES
- Collaborates with art leadership and art teams to establish, organize and maintain our material library across all game content.
- Creates high quality physically based materials using Substance Designer/Painter to establish visual targets and support art efforts across all game content.
- Establishes organized material workflows in Substance Designer/ Painter. Collaborates in implementing and maintaining material pipelines.
- Collaborates with other artists to build and integrate assets into visually consistent, high quality, and optimized environment art.
- Anticipates and identifies production challenges to leads and Technical Directors.
- Researches new tools and techniques to create more efficient and visually appealing environments.
- Works with technical artist to develop advanced shader and material sets
- Creates environment assets and scenes while considering hardware and design limitations and overall art vision of the project
- Creates documentation supporting techniques and process and encourages the sharing of knowledge and ideas
- Mentors less experienced members of the team
*This job description outlines primary duties and requirements and is not intended to identify all tasks that may be performed; individuals occupying the position may be required to perform other duties. The company may modify job duties from time to time, either in practice or in writing.
SUMMARY OF REQUIREMENTS
- Minimum of 5 years of experience in AAA game development or credit on at least one AAA title as material artist.
- Expert skills in Substance Designer/Painter
- Solid understanding of PBR rendering and the interaction between materials and lighting
- Portfolio demonstrating a wide variety of tiled and one-to-one materials created using both procedural and 3d sculpted techniques and showing attention to detail, plausibility and an aesthetic eye
- Prior knowledge and experience crafting 3D environment assets and scenes demonstrating:
- Solid understanding of color theory and experience creating balanced color palettes with strong appeal
- Good sense of form, volume, structure, and silhouette
- Strong understanding of composition and balance
- Solid understanding of efficient low poly mesh techniques
- Strong UV layout techniques
- Understanding of Texel density, memory limitations, etc.
- Ability to follow concept/reference and ability to work with wide range of styles with minimal concept and direction.
- Experience with high poly sculpting and modeling software such as Z-Brush & Maya
- Experience with 2D image creation software such as Photoshop, Painter, 3D coat, etc.
- Experience with world editors and level construction software
- Excellent communication/collaboration skills.
- Able to manage and organize work in order to meet deadlines.
- Fluid and eager problem solver
We are an equal opportunity employer valuing diversity…celebrating strengths.