3D Artist (Generalist, Real-time and Cinematic)

We're looking for generalist 3D artists experienced in both real-time and cinematic rendering with a strong understanding of common modern workflows. The project is focused on training ML networks that eventually will help other artists and game developers with improved performance and quality of rendering. Training process covers a multitude of complicated cases in advanced shading, lighting, motion, postprocess, upscaling and antialiasing - each of which requires high-quality ground truth data, accurate to production realities of cinematic CGI and game development. During the project artists are expected to work with various modern industry standard technologies and software, with the main target rendering engines being Blender Cycles, Unreal Engine and custom renders based on GLTF, USD and MaterialX data.

• Create a wide variety of 3D assets and compose 3D scenes, working individually or as part of a larger team depending on the scene complexity.
• Deliver content ranging from interior and exterior environments to individual hero assets and props, as well as characters.
• Cover a wide range of styles, from photoreal architectural visualization to sci-fi or fantasy scenes, with quality and techniques matching the current generation of game graphics.
• Handle custom content creation workflows and adapt or improve existing assets, targeting performance or cinematic quality, or finding a balance between both.

MUST

Solid experience working with content for Unreal Engine or other modern game engine (at least 5 years). Understanding of PBR workflows, material composition and optimization, comfortable working with both UDIM and trim sheet workflows. Familiarity with procedural workflows in Unreal and Blender.

Experience building and texturing both game-ready and cinematic assets in Blender - knowledge of common texturing pipelines for Unreal, Cycles using procedural approaches where appropriate. Experience with layered BSDF shading workflows.

Solid experience with creating game-ready environments with lighting, simple animations and camera work.

Some experience with characters is required - artists need to be able to adjust character materials to properly highlight skin, cloth, hair, create new material maps for SSS and translucency, wrinkle maps. Pose and set up facial expression, being able to redo the hair system from scratch (improve from card-based to curve-based, as an example).

Portfolio is mandatory. We're looking for examples of complete environments and high-quality props on display with breakdowns for material and procedural systems nodegraphs, UVs, topology, animation examples where appropriate.

NICE TO HAVE

Character sculpting and being able to create a photorealistic human from scratch, using common modeling techniques (sculpting in ZBrush or Blender, making animation-ready topology and facial animation morphs).

Animation and rigging. The project occasionally requires work with animation assets, motion capture and motion matching data, so the artist's ability to modify character's skeleton and rigging (in context of Blender and Unreal Engine) according to the task would greatly streamline the process. Any experience with this process would be appreciated, including something as simple as UE5 skeleton retargeting.

Familiarity with MaterialX and OpenPBR. One of the major parts of the project is related to the cutting edge of rendering technology, such as Academy Software MaterialX and OpenPBR standards. Familiarity with them will be a great headstart for an artist working on related tasks.

Experience with UE5 Substrate - a new advanced material system designed to work with path tracing, and a skillset closely related to MaterialX and OpenPBR.