Technical Artist II
Owlchemy Labs, United States
Job Description
We’re a 23-person Google-owned experimental VR game company looking to grow our Owls (employees!) and would love a detail-oriented, self-motivated, and creative person to join us! Owls in this role use a mix of artistic, technical, and design skills to create environments, objects, effects, and features in VR.
Requirements
Responsibilities:
- Conceptualize and generate 3D art assets based on production direction, game design, and concepts
- Design and iterate on virtual spaces, including layout of stations and arrangement of props/interactables to best meet project goals
- Prototype gameplay and systems, integrating stakeholder feedback and playtesting to continuously improve/iterate
- Write as needed to flesh out prototypes and features, including character development, brevity and humor, and functional accessibility
- Create underlying tools and systems to optimize art production and pipelines
- Optimize existing art assets for performance on mobile and console platforms
- Create performant shaders and VFX to capture Owlchemy’s style in VR
- Follow development processes and best practices
- Follow Owlchemy art standards and brand requirements
- Export assets from art tools and import them into the engine according to best practices
- Work with production to provide estimates and updates on progress and identify potential setbacks
- Collaborate with QA to provide technical details about implementation relevant for testing
- Communicate with other Owls to determine requirements for art assets
- Provide artistic and design leadership for owned tasks
Required Skills/Abilities:
- Can take concepts and create real-time 3D models of objects and environments with integrated VFX as needed
- Can model with optimized UVs using best practices that look great in game, and collaborate with the art team to create UVs that fulfil the specific needs of the final art
- Skilled in creating props and environment art for realtime media
- Experience with game engines. Has created art for games
- Experience with exporting the art from various tools into Unity
- Experience working in a small team, ideally with broad needs and wearing many hats.
Required Education and Experience:
- High School Diploma or equivalent
- Two to five years experience relevant to the position (environment, vfx art and prototype-level coding)
Preferred Education and Experience:
- Bachelor’s degree in related field or equivalent experience
- Console or mobile experience. Has developed models that have been deployed on a console or mobile platform. Understands the unique needs of these platforms.
- Shipped products showcasing technical art abilities
- Appreciation of puns (or at least the ability to groan at them)
Physical Requirements:
- This is an office job, so be prepared for prolonged periods of sitting and working on a computer. However, all Owls are provided with various ergonomic options.
- Owls must be able to use virtual reality headsets but are not expected to own one.
Position Type/Expected Hours of Work:
This is a full-time, 40-hours per week position. Core hours of work are Monday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Although this position is anticipated to be Work from Home through September 2021, newly hired Owls will be required to establish Texas residency within 60 days of hire.
Travel:
No travel is expected for this position; though we typically encourage owls to attend a conference annually for personal growth and development.
For Everyone:
We care about creating VR for Everyone - and that includes creating a welcoming workplace for everyone.
Owlchemy provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.
Other Skills and Responsibilities:
This job description doesn’t cover or contain a comprehensive listing of everything you might do at Owlchemy. As a small team of wildly talented individuals, we encourage career growth, exploration, and the wearing of many hats. As such, roles and responsibilities are collaborative and may change or ev