Job Roles
Creative
Environmental Designer
Key Responsibilities: As the environment artist on the team, you will be required to respond quickly and intelligently to gameplay changes and tests whilst working within constraints and requirements of the game engine. You will work with the designers to create visually stunning settlements and maps. You will create hard surface props and assets as well as vegetation creation, terrain texturing and lighting. As the team Environment Artist, you will work on system design for building upgrades, settlements upgrades, climates and seasons.
Knowledge, Skill and Experience
Essential
• Demonstrated visual flare and artistic talent
• Skill in 3ds Max/Maya/ZBrush
• Skill in Photoshop
• One or more shipped game
• Knowledge of games development pipeline/environment/engines
• Self-motivated approach to work
• Great communication skills complemented by a positive can-do attitude
• Experience of working effectively in a team
• Demonstrated passion for visual environment creation
• Proven experience implementing game environments
Desirable
• Formal art training
• All round art ability
• Love of games
• Knowledge of Substance Designer and Painter
• Concept art skills
• Lighting and composition skills
• 2d painting and texturing skills
• An interest in architecture and the built environment
Technical
Technical Artist - New IP
The lowdown
Acting as a bridge between the Artists and Programmers working on a game
Ensuring art assets can be easily integrated into a game without sacrificing the artistic vision or exceeding the platform’s technical limits
Investigating new techniques, implementing them and training the team
Is this role right for me?
To do this role, you will need to:
be able to show technical proficiency in areas such as lighting and rendering, texturing, and graphics-related programming languages such as shaders
have extensive knowledge of art packages ranging from modelling to texturing and special effects
be able to customise art packages so that they are as streamlined as possible for specific projects
be able to work well as part of a team
have good communication and people management skills, in order to train and mentor others
be able to work with minimum supervision
have excellent organisational skills
be able to think creatively to resolve technical challenges and limitations
have knowledge of console hardware architecture
be highly skilled in the use of 3D graphics software
be able to anticipate the needs of the artists so as to streamline their productivity
have knowledge of the requirements of the relevant health and safety legislation and procedures
What does a Technical Artist do?
The Technical Artist acts as a bridge between the Artists and Programmers working on a game. They ensure art assets can be easily integrated into a game without sacrificing either the overall artistic vision or exceeding the technical limits of the chosen platform.
The role is a relatively new one for the games industry, but is becoming increasingly important as consoles and PC hardware becomes more complex.
Despite their technical knowledge, the Technical Artist works part of the art team, working closely with the Lead Artist and the Creative Director, as well as the Lead Programmers.
Their main areas of responsibility include setting up and maintaining the art production workflow, and making decisions about which art packages and tools a studio should use.
They are also charged with investigating new techniques and implementing them. The job often includes a teaching element, with the Technical Artist sharing their knowledge via training and mentoring sessions with other Artists.
The Technical Artist is not typically directly involved in the creation of game art assets. Instead they act in more of an advisory position, setting up the systems of production as well as dealing with problems as they arise.
One large part of the job involves keeping up to date with changes in technology, both hardware and software, as well as new techniques. They are expected to be able to create custom tools to improve the efficiency of their team. This is usually carried out using the scripting languages included in the main modelling and animation packages.
They oversee work in response to feedback or debugging complex assets such as character skeleton rigs and skinning systems. They also research and oversee the implementation of rendering techniques such as normal and specular maps, particle systems and pixel shaders.
Will I need a qualification?
You will generally need at least a degree in a relevant visual art or technical subject, to be a Technical Artist. However, experience working on wide range of projects, both in terms of art tools and game hardware, is the most important requirement for the role.
If you are considering taking a games course in higher education, the following courses have been rigorously assessed by the games industry and awarded the Creative Skillset Tick for the high standard of education they provide and the degree to which they prepare you for a games career:
Games courses awarded the Creative Skillset Tick
You will also need to demonstrate a well-developed creative background and sensitivity to dealing with creative issues within technical constraints.
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