Technical Artist

Spark is looking for a technical artist to design cutting edge content and tools for a 3rd Person Action/Adventure title in a high-profile science fiction franchise currently in development for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC markets.   The Technical Artist will play a key role in establishing and maintaining the production pipelines. The ideal candidate must collaborate with content development teams to bridge technical and artistic challenges throughout production. They should have expertise in either character setup or world-building as a foundation.

Responsibilities

• Coordinate with content driven departments to ensure an efficient production based environment.
• Specify and develop art production tools that meet artists' needs in order to establish, diagnose and correct content creation pipelines.  Maintain pipeline efficiency from art source creation to in-game integration.
• Coordinate art and engineering department overlap to ensure artists are following the latest best practices.
• Identify ways to increase efficiencies in artist workflow and production pipelines. Design user-friendly solutions for a variety of technical challenges.

Requirements

• Minimum 2-year 2D/3D art degree, architecture degree, or equivalent with excellent critique and vocabulary skills. BFA or equivalent preferred.
• 5 or more years in game development.
• 3 or more console products' experience designing and troubleshooting art pipelines.
• 1 or more years as a Technical Artist in a game company, having shipped at least one next generation console project.
• Solid understanding of proper workmanship involved in creating 2D and 3D art for efficiency and aesthetics.
• Must be an excellent and positive communicator.
• Proficient in Maya with a deep knowledge of MEL script. Python knowledge a plus.
• Must know and understand shader authoring(unreal shaders a plus)

Preferred Skills

• Experience with Unreal Engine 3.
• Experience with Character Setup/pipelines.
• Experience with world building toolsets.
• Managing external development/outsourcing pipelines a plus.
• Expertise in shader scripting knowledge
• Experience in agile-based/SCRUM development
• Knowledge of animation systems a plus

• Applicants must be able to work at our Sherman Oaks, California studios and be authorized to work in the United States.
• Email only. No visits or phone calls, please.
• The Subject line of your email must reference the job title and your name, like this: Technical Artist: Last name, First name
• Include your resume as an email attachment, preferably as a PDF or in Word 2003 or later format. Include links to online portfolio if applicable.
• Make sure your resume also includes your name, address, phone, and email.
• Send email to art-jobA1816@sparkunlimited.com*
  

*principle applications only.  no recruitment firms please.

Please note, all submitted materials will not be returned.

Download Spark Non-Disclosure Agreement