We’re going to need a tech artist in a couple of weeks, here’s a heads up. Contact me directly if you’re interested cmoore at turbine dot com.
Our centralized art studio is working on 3 (sometimes more) projects. Art is being generated for our games by upwards of 40 artists. We’re a great MMO shop, Dungeons and Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online continue to grow and impress. It’s not a secret that we’re also working on a console game. As such, we’re quite busy!
We’re looking for an experienced Technical Artist to help us integrate art, build pipelines, use our proprietary MPR tool to rig characters and to generally make awesome stuff in our games.
Here’s who we’re looking for:
You’re the type of person who thrives on ensuring assets are technically sound. You like to make sure art assets meet the specifications of game engines. You can handle a large number of similar tasks, and search for and implement practices to be more efficient. You’ve got a good eye for aesthetics too. When you say “I’ll take care of it” we know it’ll be done and done well. You get excited when you know you’ve made an artist’s asset streamlined, efficient, functional and helped them make it look great in the builds.
If you were working for us, here are some of the things you would have done last week:
Ensured that meshes were to tech specs.
Used the MPR to rig a character
Integrated and tested said character in client
Added to an animation set and adjusted animations in the Havok Behavior Tool
Integrated and tested a set of weapons into one of our games.
With approval from a the Tech Art Director you wrote or augmented a python script to make any of the above tasks more efficient.
You sat in a code review with a Tech Artist prior to releasing/using the tool
Fixed a physics bug.
Shown an artist a cool technique.
Attended a stand up meeting where you discuss your current and next tasks
Attended a training session from a Senior Tech Artist so you can learn more about a proprietary tool/process
Created a wiki document to demonstrate a particular process
Here are some other things you might do:
Sit in a training session.
Help an artist close out some tasks in the task tracking system.
Troubleshoot and, if needed, properly escalate hardware or software concerns.
Fix something.
Stay on top of your bug queue.
Fill in on some basic customer service/support to artists and animators.
Great communication skills are a must. Attention to detail is vital, as is understanding of game resolution mesh and texture creation, character rigging and animation experience. Experience with at least one game engine is required, and experience with the Havok toolset is a major plus. We use python and pymel as well as some legacy MEL tools, so experience in all three is a big plus. We’re looking for someone who is efficient with a great eye for detail. This is a job for someone with two or more years of console development experience. This is a job in the greater Boston area.
If this job sounds like something you’d love to do, we definitely want to hear from you.