Principal Materials Artist (Apex Legends)

Respawn Entertainment; West Chatsworth (CA); On-site; USD 154,000 - 234,000; Full time

Job summary

Respawn Entertainment is seeking a Principal Materials Artist for the Apex Legends project to establish and maintain a core material library and surfacing workflows. You will lead surfacing strategy, collaborate across rendering, technical art, and craft, and contribute to tools and pipelines with a focus on high performance and cross-platform targets.

The ideal candidate has deep PBR knowledge, expert Substance Painter/Designer skills, and proven experience building shared material libraries at

Qualifications

• 12+ years of professional game development experience.
• Portfolio demonstrating a wide range of high quality materials and a mastery of PBR.
• Expert level knowledge of Substance Painter and Designer.
• Direct production experience building shared material libraries that have been brought to market at a AAA scale and quality.
• Experience in live service titles, seasonal content, cosmetics, or character customization systems is a plus.
• Experience collaborating with technical disciplines on standing up new pipelines.
• Capability to author materials or shaders as proof of concept or visual targets is a plus.
• Comfortable working with proprietary technology that ships on a wide range of platforms with performance as a top priority.
• Strong ability to clearly communicate, both verbally and in writing, create documentation, training materials, or mentoring junior artists.

Responsibilities

• Co-develop new surfacing strategies and pipelines in collaboration with rendering, technical art, and craft experts.
• Build, curate, and maintain a high quality shared material library.
• Help design material systems or layered materials with an understanding of complex surface interactions.
• Contribute to tools and pipelines leveraging subject matter expertise in Substance Painter/Designer, Houdini Copernicus, or other related DCC tools.
• Be a champion for technology that meets high performance expectations and technical constraints.
• Help test and validate new rendering and lighting features.
• Build partnerships and collaborative efforts between multiple disciplines to achieve successful solutions.

Skills

12+ years game development

PBR materials mastery

Substance Painter/Designer expert

Shader authoring

Pipeline collaboration

Documentation/mentoring

Tools

Substance Painter

Substance Designer

Houdini

Copernicus

Job description

Founded in 2010, Respawn was created with the philosophy that when talented people have creative freedom, they’ll make extraordinary games that achieve the unexpected. Respawn Entertainment is the Academy Award-winning studio behind critically acclaimed multi-platform games Apex Legends, Titanfall, Titanfall 2, Star Wars™ Jedi: Fallen Order, Star Wars™ Jedi: Survivor, and Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond. As a collective of creative developers, we have launched some of the industry’s most critically and commercially successful games. We truly love what we do and want to share our passion with players worldwide.

We are looking for a Principal Materials Artist to join our Apex Legends team to establish, direct, and maintain a core material library and surfacing workflows. As a Principal Material Artist on the project, you will be working within a multidisciplinary group on new asset pipeline initiatives that will standardize and elevate our surfacing presentation. Our ideal candidate is an accomplished visual artist with an eye for surface quality, texture, lighting response, and material truth. They are subject matter experts in physically based rendering and are technical enough to directly contribute or advise on lighting, rendering, and pipelines.

Why Join Us?

• This role is an opportunity to contribute to new asset pipelines and work in a multidisciplinary R&D group.

• As a Principal you will have broad agency to guide and deliver solutions as you see fit.

• This role will have a significant impact on our product and your work will be highly visible to our players.

Responsibilities

• Co-develop new surfacing strategies and pipelines in collaboration with rendering, technical art, and craft experts.

• Build, curate, and maintain a high quality shared material library.

• Help design material systems or layered materials with an understanding of complex surface interactions.

• Contribute to tools and pipelines leveraging subject matter expertise in Substance Painter/Designer, Houdini Copernicus, or other related DCC tools.

• Be a champion for technology that meets high performance expectations and technical constraints.

• Help test and validate new rendering and lighting features.

• Build partnerships and collaborative efforts between multiple disciplines to achieve successful solutions.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of professional game development experience.

• Portfolio demonstrating a wide range of high quality materials and a mastery of PBR.

• Expert level knowledge of Substance Painter and Designer.

• Direct production experience building shared material libraries that have been brought to market at a AAA scale and quality.

• Experience in live service titles, seasonal content, cosmetics, or character customization systems is a plus.

• Experience collaborating with technical disciplines on standing up new pipelines.

• Capability to author materials or shaders as proof of concept or visual targets is a plus.

• Comfortable working with proprietary technology that ships on a wide range of platforms with performance as a top priority.

• Strong ability to clearly communicate, both verbally and in writing, create documentation, training materials, or mentoring junior artists.

Pay Transparency - North America

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

The ranges listed below are what EA in good faith expects to pay applicants for this role in these locations at the time of this posting. If you reside in a different location, a recruiter will advise on the applicable range and benefits. Pay offered will be determined based on a number of relevant business and candidate factors (e.g. education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, or business needs).

PAY RANGES

• British Columbia (depending on location e.g. Vancouver vs. Victoria) $133,500 - $186,400 CAD
• California (depending on location e.g. Los Angeles vs. San Francisco) $153,700 - $233,600 USD

Pay is just one part of the overall compensation at EA.

In the US, we offer a package of benefits including paid time off (3 weeks per year to start), 80 hours per year of sick time, 16 paid company holidays per year, 10 weeks paid time off to bond with baby, medical/dental/vision insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, and 401(k) to regular full-time employees. Certain roles may also be eligible for bonus and other incentive programs.

For Canada, we offer a package of benefits including vacation (3 weeks per year to start), 10 days per year of sick time, paid top-up to EI/QPIP benefits up to 100% of base salary when you welcome a new child (12 weeks for maternity, and 4 weeks for parental/adoption leave), extended health/dental/vision coverage, life insurance, disability insurance, retirement plan to regular full-time employees. Certain roles may also be eligible for bonus and other incentive programs.