Lead Tech Artist

 As a Tech Art Lead at teamLFG, you’ll collaborate closely with the art team to bring iconic characters to life from prototype through production for a completely new world at PlayStation. Your ability to craft exceptional character rigs and efficient art workflows with a high degree of autonomy will delight animators and contribute to a class-leading action game!  

As a member of our tight-knit art team, you’ll balance craft expertise with a player-first mindset and willingness to contribute beyond your role to improve the playable experience. Your understanding of animation and technical constraints will enable you to deliver functional and innovative rigs without an established pipeline during prototyping, and then to help us build a scalable pipeline for production. Most importantly, you will work with a fun, diverse, and passionate cross-discipline team devoted to building a new universe from scratch.  

We look for candidates who value joining a mission-focused team with a diverse set of backgrounds, experiences, interests, and viewpoints.  

RESPONSIBILITIES  

• Lead the Tech Art discipline & define the team’s goals while also contributing directly to character rigging and pipeline development in early stages of the project 

• Collaborate with project leadership to define and oversee the Technical Art roadmap, working cross team with artists, designers, and engineers to inform these decisions 

• Work closely with the Art Director and other disciplines to find innovative methods for bringing the team’s artistic vision to screen 

• Define and create production-ready workflows for art disciplines that support rapid iteration 

• Build and manage the Technical Art team, including hiring, mentoring, and managing internal and external Tech Artists 

• Engage in proactive communication with all stakeholders to ensure shared objectives and preemptively manage any challenges 

 REQUIRED SKILLS 

• Experience in animator-friendly character rigging as well as building and supporting artist workflows 

• Production experience with standard content creation tools such as Maya, ZBrush, Substance Painter, and Photoshop, as well as professional experience using Python 

• Ability to independently translate art team goals into creative solutions with a thorough understanding of cost, efficiency, and quality tradeoffs 

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to work effectively in a cross-discipline team environment 

• Experience in producing clear, concise, and accurate technical documentation, with the ability to simplify complex topics 

• Experience in managing and resolving art-related stability, performance, and memory issues across different platforms 

• Experience with Unreal Engine 

• Experience managing external resources effectively 

• Experience shipping across multiple platforms (PC, console) 

 NICE TO HAVE SKILLS 

• Experience with stylized animation solutions like squash and stretch and smear frames 

• Ability to creatively solve for a wide variety of problems during R+D, as demonstrated by prior success in incubation environments 

• Ability to create unique custom shaders and effects that are efficient, scalable, and deliver on the team’s artistic vision 

• Ability to create and hook up gameplay VFX assets 

• Experience creating/managing modular environment systems