Senior Technical Artist
The Technical Artist is expected to be the bridge between Artists and Engineers. Individuals in this role are pro-active problem solvers who demonstrate a strong sense of creativity and respect for aesthetics. Candidates can be from an Art, Design, Mathematics, Engineering or Science background; however they must demonstrate a comfort level in working with both art and technology. Working with Programming/Technical staff the Technical Artist ensures that CG assets are easily integrated into the game engine without sacrificing artistic integrity.
Candidates coming from outside the game industry will be expected to learn/understand how game-play and architecture issues can affect content creation and successfully develop workflows to compensate for such limitations on artistic content.
Responsibilities:
- Develop solutions to various production problems in the CG pipelines
- Liaise with appropriate EA studios to ensure that his/her team is aware of other proprietary tools and that his/her team always has up to date versions
- Debug basic to intermediate character rigs; skins/binds models to skeletons, review of skeletons set up by others
- Build basic CG Dynamics systems
- Debug skeletons, models, shaders, corrupt scenes
- Produce and integrate art assets where necessary
- Write basic to intermediate level scripts and expressions within a CG package (i.e. Mel) to improve efficiency of various artist tasks
- Be able to proactively investigate and implement technology, tools and methods appropriate to the art direction of the product (with careful consideration for optimization and product demands)
Requirements:
- At least 1-3 years cinematic/games production experience
- Work in production team in various stages of modeling, texturing and lighting at very proficient level
- Intermediate scripting experience with: MEL / Maya API / MaxScript or Python
- Good aptitude for problem solving CG issues.
- Ability to think creatively to resolve technical challenges and limitations
- A strong understanding of at least one 3d package to the extent of being able to troubleshoot Modeler production problems
-An understanding of the art language. The ability to understand and communicate art briefs, it is fundamental for the tech-artist to understand the art vision for the project. - The ability to integrate working art assets into a developing graphical/technical pipeline amidst considerable holes and bugs.
Understanding:
-Computer/game hardware(next gen, current gen and handheld), particle systems, character skeletons and rigging, image manipulation tools, shader systems, lighting.
- Basic knowledge of the following Real Time systems: Rendering, Dynamic Lighting, Dynamics, AI.
- Strong understanding of good asset management practices
- Proactive and forward thinking
- Ability to schedule work (self or other) with a focus on emergent SE and Art dependencies
- A willingness and confidence to provide a communication bridge between artists and SE’s
- Understanding the limits of platform memory constraints with regard to visual assets.
Please apply directly to jmarrello@ea.com
I look forward to your resumes!
Joseph