Principal VFX Artist

PlayStation Network; United States; Remote; USD 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a Principal VFX Artist to join their innovative team. In this role, you will leverage your extensive experience in the gaming and VFX industry to guide development teams, mentor fellow artists, and shape the artistic vision for exciting projects. You will be at the forefront of creating stunning visual effects, utilizing cutting-edge technology, and pushing the boundaries of real-time graphics. This opportunity offers a chance to work on high-budget AAA projects, collaborate with talented professionals, and contribute to a dynamic and inclusive environment that values creativity and diversity. If you have a passion for visual storytelling and technical artistry, this role is tailored for you.

Qualifications

• Advanced skills in Houdini and Maya for visual effects.
• Strong knowledge of game engines and VFX systems.

Responsibilities

• Mentor the art team and advise on VFX development.
• Collaborate on artistic direction and quality targets.
• Identify and improve VFX pipeline inefficiencies.

Skills

Houdini

Maya

Unreal Engine

Unity

Visual Effects

3D Modeling

Python

Photoshop

Tools

Unreal's Niagara

Substance Designer

Microsoft Office Suite

Job description

PlayStation isn’t just the Best Place to Play — it’s also the Best Place to Work. Today, we’re recognized as a global leader in entertainment producing The PlayStation family of products and services including PlayStation5, PlayStation4, PlayStationVR, PlayStationPlus, acclaimed PlayStation software titles from PlayStation Studios, and more.

PlayStation also strives to create an inclusive environment that empowers employees and embraces diversity. We welcome and encourage everyone who has a passion and curiosity for innovation, technology, and play to explore our open positions and join our growing global team.

The PlayStation brand falls under Sony Interactive Entertainment, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Corporation.

Insomniac is looking for our new Principal VFX Artist. In this role, the Principal VFX Artist will be responsible for blending significant industry experience, technical and artistic versatility to a variety of Real-Time VFX tasks. Paramount to the role, the Principal VFX Artist must possess the agility required to move quickly between technical and artistic challenges. In addition, the artist must leverage their experience to provide feedback, mentoring, and recommendations throughout the course of product development.

If this is the opportunity you have been looking for, please read on:

Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following:

• Leverages significant experience in the Games, CG or VFX industry to advise development teams across a variety of disciplines.
• Serves as a mentor for the art team, assisting in training while sharing techniques and workflows.
• Collaborates with the Art Directors to determine the artistic direction for new and existing properties.
• Understands the VFX needs at the project level and works with the VFX Manager and Art Directors to create a plan that fits within all budgetary constraints.
• Utilizes industry experience to provide clear recommendations on team structure, company policy, and artistic direction.
• Sets “quality targets” for new or existing properties.
• Creates pivotal content for new or existing properties.
• Provides detailed and relevant feedback across a variety of creative materials.
• Possesses a strong understanding of the capabilities and limitations of current real-time hardware and software and has experience to push the limits within those constraints.
• Be aware of the future trends to evolve the studio’s VFX tech in innovative ways.
• Identifies VFX pipeline bottlenecks and inefficiencies and works with stakeholders to improve them.
• Demonstrates expertise across a variety of artistic foundations including visual and graphic design, composition, color theory, rhythm, balance, timing, etc.
• Displays an ability to lead by example amidst artistic and technical challenges.
• Helps debug, troubleshoot and solve major technical hurdles, especially those pertaining to graphics and performance.
• Ability to quickly adapt to a diverse selection of styles and sensibilities.
• Possesses a proven track record of dependability, consistency, and high-quality work on big budget AAA projects.
• Other duties may be assigned.

Supervisory Responsibilities: This job has no supervisory responsibilities.

Qualifications: To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Computer Skills:

• Advanced level in Houdini and Maya: expert understanding of these DCC visual effects packages, competent working with joints and locators, animation/keyframing, rigid-body and fluid simulations, materials, shaders, lighting and rendering.
• 3d modeling and procedural modeling/UV’ing skills are a must.
• Strong knowledge and experience with modern game engines/editors such as Unreal, Unity, proprietary, etc.
• Proficient with real-time particle-editors and VFX systems such as Unreal’s Niagara, PopcornFX, etc.
• Advance understanding of complex node-based shader networks such as those used in Unreal, Unity, etc.
• Familiarity with game scripting and/or node-based systems (e.g. Unreal Blueprint, etc).
• Have strong grasp of technical scripting, programming and expressions pertaining to DCC and graphics: e.g. MEL, Python, Houdini VEX, HLSL Shaders, etc.
• Proficient in Photoshop for painting and editing textures.
• Strong knowledge of procedural texture generation software (e.g. Substance Designer, Filter-Forge, After-Effects, etc).
• Knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite.
• Knowledge of other visual effects or CG software a plus (e.g. Blender, Nuke, etc).

We look forward to hearing from you. Please use the link below and apply. Thank you!