February Digest: Career Opportunities in the Game Industry

1. Vehicle Artist at Infinity Ward, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Founded in 2002, Infinity Ward is the original studio behind the Call of Duty franchise. They are located in Woodland Hills, California, just outside of Los Angeles, and have offices in Poland, Mexico, and their newest in Austin, Texas. The titles developed by Infinity Ward have won over 200 Game of the Year awards and 100 Editor's Choice awards, among many other industry accolades.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Creation of vehicles, gear, and props derived from both scan data as well as concept art and reference photos
• Basic rigid skinning using internal tools to set up a vehicle in-game
• Maintain and update assets to a high-efficiency standard that fit within a budget
• Collaborate with the vehicle lead artist and teammates for both the art and technical side of vehicle development
• Collaborate with designers, concept artists, and animators
• Receive feedback and modify work based on the direction
• Provide feedback to improve the tools
• Follow schedules and meet deadlines

2. Technical Animator at metricminds, Frankfurt, HE, Germany

metricminds is a unique service provider for animated content. Using the same technology that is utilized in the production of games (game engines), they create fantastic animated content for various purposes. Their main field is the production of cinematics for games, but they also create trailers and other animated content. The company has been around since 2001 when MD Philip Weiss founded metricminds as a motion capture service studio. Since then, the team, studio, and services have evolved and now cover the complete range of production steps needed to tell good stories. 

About the job: 

Can you supervise and properly handle bringing animated content (characters, face, cameras, and other objects) from Motionbuilder/Maya into the Unreal Engine (Sequencer) and possibly also export them back as an animation workflow step?

Do you possess good interpersonal and communication skills and do you have an ability to work independently and as part of a multi-disciplinary team?

If you have a sense of initiative, originality, and resourcefulness in problem-solving, then we have the right challenge for you and metricminds sounds like your new home!

The team is looking for someone who can proactively take care of this process, anticipate technical issues, and overcome them with a great problem-solving and scripting skillset, including experience in and outside of Unreal Engine.

3. Senior 3D Environment Artist - Sunrise Village at InnoGames GmbH, Hamburg, HH, Germany

Your mission:

• 3D focus. Convert & interpret 2D concepts into textured real-time 3D models, like buildings, vegetation, and props.
• Support. Help the art team in building new Stages in Unity, working on Terrain, dressing, and lighting.
• Impress. Create impressive game-ready assets, and apply/improve the art style of our new mobile game.
• Collaborate. Work cooperatively within an agile, multi-disciplinary team environment, and report to our Team Lead Art.
• Shine. Deliver your results with respect to our production pipeline, art direction & team-internal deadlines.
• Organize. Plan and estimate times for your own tasks, and coordinate / communicate with our external partners.

4. Technical Art Director at PRELOADED, London, England, United Kingdom

A BAFTA-winning games studio working in XR connected play and geospatial technologies.

Key Responsibilities:

• Work alongside the Creative Lead and Art Director to execute the artistic vision.
• Work with the tech and art leads to design and write custom components and tools when control over complex visual elements is required.
• Support the studio R&D capabilities, prototype new shaders with immersive technology and hardware, explore cloud-based rendering and explore new tools.
• Continually evolve, set standards and best practices for creating real-time experience art pipelines using XR technology.
• Work with artistic and development teams to drive in-game budgets and ensure proper experience performance and optimization.
• Maintain a clear channel of communication between the art and dev teams.

5. Lead Character Artist at Imangi Studios, LLC, Raleigh, NC, United States

Imangi Studios was founded by husband and wife team Keith Shepherd and Natalia Luckyanova in 2008 with the goal of creating family-friendly, fun games for everyone to enjoy. What started as a passion project for the couple has evolved into a successful business, with Keith and Natalia now working with a team of other talented game creators. In 2011, the studio developed the mega-hit Temple Run, which has been downloaded over one billion times worldwide. Based in Raleigh, North Carolina, the self-funded, fully independent studio has also developed a number of other games including Temple Run 2, Temple Run: Brave, Temple Run: Oz, Max Adventure, and Harbor Master.

Responsibilities:

• Provide thoughtful leadership and creative, technical direction to the character team
• Create (Model, UV, Texture) high-quality characters and creatures for mobile games
• Represents the Character Art team among project leadership, providing an accurate assessment of character art initiatives
• Manage the direction on character asset development from concept through animation
• Collaborate with designers and engineers to fulfill complex game design requirements
• Work closely with the Art Director and other Character Artists to ensure a consistent style that matches or exceeds the visual target
• Assist in planning the asset production schedule, character creation pipeline, and workflow

6. Unreal 4 Environment Artist / Level Designer at Ironbelly Studios Inc, Montreal, QC, Canada

Role and Requirements

• 3+ Years of Professional Unreal experience with Set Design, Lighting, and Material Setup
• Having a good eye for telling stories through your environments
• Taking a pro-active approach to technical problem-solving, including creating tools to help become more efficient at what you do
• Managing your time efficiently to meet deadlines
• Responding positively to, and acting on, feedback

Don't forget to check out the 80LV Job Board for more openings.