Lighting Artist

Keywords Studios Australia; United States; Remote; USD 38,000 - 57,000; Full time

Job summary

Keywords Studios is seeking a Lighting Artist to create high-quality lighting for environments and cinematics in real-time game projects. You will align lighting with the project’s artistic direction and storytelling, optimizing assets for Unreal Engine/Unity and cross-platform performance.

You will collaborate with the Art Director and cross-functional teams, contribute to reviews, and push visual quality while improving pipelines and processes.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience as a Lighting Artist in the video game industry.
• Strong understanding of lighting, composition, colour theory, and storytelling.
• Experience creating optimized assets for real-time game engines such as Unreal or Unity.
• Knowledge of lighting tools, performance optimization, and cross-platform constraints.

Responsibilities

• Create high-quality, visually compelling lighting for environments and cinematics.
• Collaborate with Art Director to maintain the overall art direction; work with cross-functional teams to ensure consistency.
• Ensure lighting meets performance, memory, and platform requirements across multiple platforms.
• Stay current with industry trends and contribute ideas to pipelines and processes.

Skills

Lighting Artist experience

Real-time lighting

Unreal Engine / Unity

Lumen / light baking

Collaboration in art teams

Tools

Unreal Engine

Unity

Lumen

Post-processing

Job description

Applicants must be currently residing in Japan and possess valid authorization to work in Japan.

Lighting Creation

• Create high-quality, visually compelling lighting for environments and cinematics.
• Produce lighting that aligns with the project’s artistic direction and storytelling, through mood, tone and atmosphere.
• Develop lighting optimized for real-time game engines.

Collaboration & Production

• Work closely with the Art Director to maintain the overall art direction.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams throughout the production pipeline to ensure artistic consistency and quality.
• Participate in reviews, feedback sessions, and iterative development processes.

Technical Art & Optimisation

• Ensure lighting meets performance, memory, and platform-specific requirements across a variety of platforms.
• Collaborate closely with environment, VFX and technical art teams to integrate lighting with assets and pipelines
• Apply strong understanding of lighting for real‑time performance.
• Maintain consistency in quality while adhering to technical constraints and engine limitations.
• Troubleshoot and resolve creative and technical lighting challenges.

Innovation & Continuous Improvement

• Stay current with industry trends, emerging technologies, tools, and workflows.
• Contribute ideas and improvements to pipelines and production processes.
• Continuously push the visual quality and innovation of game art production.

Qualifications

Required Skills and Experience:

• Extensive experience as a Lighting Artist within the video game industry, with a strong portfolio showcasing high‑quality real‑time game assets.
• Strong understanding of lighting, composition, colour theory, and visual storytelling.
• Experience creating optimized assets for modern real‑time game engines such as Unreal Engine or Unity.
• Strong understanding of lighting tools (Lumen, light baking and post‑processing), performance optimization, and technical limitations across multiple gaming platforms.
• Ability to work collaboratively within multidisciplinary teams, communicate ideas effectively, and incorporate feedback throughout production.
• Knowledge of game development pipelines and the ability to adapt artistic styles to suit various game genres and target platforms.

Desirable skills and experience:

• Passion for gaming and a strong understanding of market trends, player expectations, and gaming cultures across PC, Console, and Nintendo platforms.
• Experience successfully guiding and communicating with other art teams to ensure artistic vision and asset quality are maintained from concept through to final in‑game implementation.

Employment Type: 1-Year Contract

If you'd like to know more about Keywords Studios we recommend visiting our corporate site HERE

Keywords is committed to creating a diverse, inclusive and supportive working environment.

Role Information: EN

Studio: Keywords Studios

Location: Asia Pacific, Japan, Tokyo

Area of Work: Art Services

Service: Create

Employment Type: Full Time, Contract

Working Pattern: Remote

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