Senior Technical Artist

Senior Technical Artist

SUMMARY:

Firaxis Games is searching for an expert Senior Technical Artist. You should have a combination of strong creative/visual aesthetics and technical knowledge as the job is roughly a 50/50 split in these areas.  You should be familiar in every aspect of the content creation pipeline and be able to think creatively to come up with techniques that work better and faster. Your goal will be to be a force multiplier for the art team by helping them with automation and education, and to act as a liaison between Art and Engineering teams to help tackle the more sophisticated issues that require an understanding of both.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Problem solving – Use all the tools at your disposal to help tackle sophisticated visual problems that require a novel approach in the context of our games
• Prototyping– Help with prototyping new engine and game features by crafting content to test new functionality and demonstrate its potential to others
• Tools development – Build tools to help artists do their job by assisting to find any authoring mistakes and automating tasks that are either technically difficult or repetitive
• Optimization – Use diagnostic tools to evaluate performance and budgets, and identify areas for improvement
• Establish standard processes – Work with art leads and engineers to establish the requirements and workflows for authoring content
• Documentation and education – Help to disseminate technical information in easy-to-understand language for the rest of the team

QUALIFICATIONS:

• 5+ years of game development experience.
• Understanding of scripting for one or more DCC packages (Maxscript, Mel, Python, etc.)
• Sophisticated 3DSMax or Maya experience
• Understanding of realtime rendering
• Knowledgeable with Physically Based Rendering and Lighting
• Experience with various software packages that include Shading, Profiling, Scripting, Vfx (eg. Substance Designer/Painter, Houdini, RenderDoc)
• Ability to understand and explain sophisticated technical concepts
• Content creation skills a plus (modeling, texturing, animation, vfx, etc.)
• Experience with procedural content generation a plus.

BENEFITS:

• Relocation assistance provided
• Flexible work hours
• 401K