Lead Technical Artist
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Job Description
Lead Technical Artist at ILM developing complex shaders and materials for AR/VR experiences. Collaborating with engineers and optimizing visual fidelity across diverse projects.
Responsibilities:
- Lead by example in designing, authoring, and implementing complex, high-performance, and visually stunning real-time shaders and materials within a game engine such as Unreal Engine.
- Drive the look development and final aesthetic quality for key characters, props, and environments, ensuring consistency with the Art Director’s vision.
- Profile and optimize existing and new shaders to meet demanding performance and memory budgets across all target platforms without compromising visual fidelity.
- Act as a key resource on Physically Based Rendering (PBR) principles, material calibration, and texture authoring best practices.
- Identify bottlenecks in the art production pipeline related to materials, texturing, and shading, and proactively develop robust solutions.
- Write and maintain tools/scripts to automate material assignment, streamline shader iteration, and improve artist workflows.
- Collaborate directly with Graphics Engineers to research and integrate new rendering features and techniques into the production pipeline.
Requirements:
- 7+ years of experience in game development, film, AR/VR, immersive entertainment, or related fields.
- Expert-level proficiency in a node-based shader development environment (e.g., Unreal Engine's Material Editor, Unity's Shader Graph, Substance Designer).
- Deep understanding of real-time rendering pipelines and modern rendering techniques (Deferred, Forward+, Ray Tracing).
- Strong foundation in Computer Graphics theory, especially Physically Based Rendering (PBR) principles, lighting, and color theory.
- Proficiency in at least one shader language (HLSL/GLSL/Cg) is highly desirable for custom shader implementation.
- Experience with Python, Mel, or C# for tool development and pipeline scripting.
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to articulate complex technical ideas to both artists and engineers.
- Bonus points for: Experience with Houdini for procedural asset generation or VFX integration.
Benefits:
- A bonus and/or long-term incentive units may be provided as part of the compensation package.
- Full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits.
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