Job Description

Job Summary

We are seeking a creative and experienced Senior Lighting Artist to join our team and help shape a AAA developed experience featuring a world recognized IP. In this role, you'll be instrumental in shaping the game's visuals by creating lighting that drives player breadcrumbing, supports a high visual bar, and plays in concert with a strong narrative/mood/story, and ultimately spotlights the player experience. This full-time remote position offers an opportunity to light interiors and exterior scenes in a large variety of environment locations. In this role you'll develop lighting pipelines, document processes, and raise visual standards.

(Maya/Unity 6) (e.g., Jira, Confluence, Miro), and repository tools (e.g., git, perforce, etc)

Key Responsibilities

• Design and implement the visual quality and mood for game environments, characters, and cinematics.
• Collaborate with Art Directors, Level Designers, and Environment Artists to achieve the artistic vision; delivering AAA quality environment lighting that consistently achieves spectacle while balancing performance sensibilities.
• Providing look/dev comps or mood boards that communicate visual/lighting targets.
• Participate in planning of lighting project roadmaps and discussing needs and goals of the project.
• Work with Technical Artists and Engineers to enhance tools and workflows to maximize efficiency.
• Passion for working collaboratively and the ability to communicate feedback in a positive and healthy way.
• Documenting and communicating workflow and best practices to support consistency across the Team.
• Participation in teamwide playtests and contribute your ideas and feedback to group discussions.

Requirements

• 4+ years experience as a Lighting Artist in games, film, or the CG industry.
• A strong portfolio that demonstrates experience lighting environments and characters for AAA games; a Lighting portfolio that shows mood, depth, and visual storytelling.
• You have an intuitive understanding of lighting fundamentals, mood, composition, color theory, space, material, and light.
• Comfort in taking on responsibility for the development of complex lighting solutions to achieve the quality bar.
• Strong experience with Post-processing, global illumination, and color correction toolsets to enhance look and feel.
• Understanding of contemporary lighting and surfacing methodologies, including physically based rendering tools, exposure settings, shaders, and materials.
• Understanding of lighting probes, volumes, optimization, and post-processing.
• Familiarity with Git, production workflows.
• Experience with lighting optimizations and profiling performance (using tools like Unity Profiler and Frame Debugger)
• A more stylized focused lighting portfolio.
• Educated on industry key players/games and a strong perspective on how they relate to our current and future projects.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to effectively coordinate with every department of a game development team.
• Ability to generate art without use of AI tools/generators.
• Outstanding verbal and written communication skills.
• Strong organizational and time management skills.
• An unwavering commitment to creating a positive and inclusive work environment.

Nice-to-Have Qualifications

• Strong understanding of Unity Engine and adaptive probe volume workflows
• Technical scripting skills

Compensation and Benefits:

Salary range: $110,000 - $150,000 USD

• Unlimited PTO (used responsibly and subject to business needs)
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage
• 401(k) with company match
• Fully remote work

Smile Break is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, age, or any other legally protected characteristic.

Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the country in which they reside. Visa sponsorship is not currently available for this position.

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