Sony Pictures is hiring: Real-Time Asset Artist in Culver City

Overview

Sony Pictures Entertainment is looking for a Real-time Asset Artist (Project Hire) to create content for the Unreal Engine. The ideal candidate will have extensive knowledge of the Unreal Engine. They will be proficient in Concepting, Set Design, Layout, Modeling, Surfacing, Basic Rigging, and Optimizing assets. They will have an excellent artistic eye for detail when creating high quality assets and are proactive with collaboration and communication with the whole team.

This role is limited term up to 6 months.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with the Asset Supervisor, Asset, Pipeline, VAD and Lighting team on creating characters, environments, vehicles and props to be used in the Unreal Engine.
• Create high quality assets ranging from concept to final model and surfacing that are fully optimized to perform in a real time environment.
• Ingest assets that are internally created or from third parties into our projects.
• Active in the creative research and development and communicates goals and objectives clearly.
• Assist with long-term strategic planning and inspiring technical solutions regarding asset development with the team.
• Leverage latest advancements in Unreal Engine to expedite asset development process.
• Ensure that standardized practices are developed and implemented across projects to meet high quality and aesthetic standards.
• Technical ability to create project-based materials and blueprints in engine.
• Critically think and problem solve technical challenges and limitations within DCC programs and Unreal Engine.
• Creating Control Rigs in DCC and Unreal Engine when requested.
• Generate documentation on processes used for content creation.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience with real-time content creation including examples in an artistic portfolio showcasing modeling and texturing expertise across a variety of model types (characters, vehicles, environments, props).
• Ability to create meshes, materials, UV maps, and textures for optimal performance.
• Proficient knowledge in DCC programs like Maya, 3ds Max, ZBrush, Houdini, Blender, etc. for creating detailed models.
• Extensive experience with Substance Suite and Photoshop for textures and materials in line with Physically-Based Rendering and Non-Photo Realistic principles.
• Experience with optimization processes for assets while maintaining high fidelity details.
• Proficient experience in real-time productions using Unreal Engine; knowledge of tools within Unreal for character creation, set dressing, landscapes, blueprints, PCGs, splines, etc.
• Ability to work in a variety of art styles with or without conceptual references and to plan look development from references.
• Strong artistic understanding of anatomy, proportions, scale, silhouette, lighting, composition, layout, color theory, atmosphere, etc.
• Ability to communicate and take art direction notes and apply them effectively in written and verbal form.
• Self-motivated, proactive, with excellent organization, time management, communication, and collaboration skills.
• Maintain consistency and quality on all meshes, textures, and shaders created for assets.
• Ability to Rig and skin assets and build a Control Rig in Unreal Engine.
• Understanding of Metahumans and ability to convert custom characters to run in Unreal Engine.

Nice to have

• Experience working in a Volume, LED Stage, Mocap stage and with Virtual Cameras.
• Visual Effects experience (compositing, set extension, previs, postvis, techvis, After Effects, Nuke, Renderman, VRAY, etc.).
• ShotGrid, SyncSketch, Bluescape, Marvelous Designer knowledge is a plus.
• Experience with photogrammetry and scanning.
• Experience with lighting, sequencer, camera, layout, FX, and animation in Unreal Engine.
• Experience with advanced rigging, Metahuman skinning, and control rigs in DCC and Unreal Engine.
• Experience with Unreal tools, landscapes, procedural content generators, blueprint creation, sequencer, Nanite, Lumen, Data Layers, Niagara, Groom, Chaos, simulations, retargeting, cloth, plugins, etc.
• Creating custom parent materials, procedural materials, and functions.
• Basic scripting knowledge (C++ / JavaScript / Python).