Junior/Regular Visual Effects Artist, £Excellent + Benefits

Established in 1991, this is an independent game development company producing highly playable, imaginative games across virtually all platforms. They have developed over 50 successful titles and are recognised as one of the major players in the industry.

They are currently looking to recruit an experienced Visual Effects Artist - Explosions, particles, severe weather and full screen effects are an essential part of unifying a project’s artistic vision and ensuring that we add all the polish and excitement that we need in our games.

The visual effects artist is primarily concerned with the pre-visualisation, creation, implementation and optimisation of visual effects assets into the game. These effects include, but are not limited to, particle, geometry, full screen, rendered and shader effects.
Working exclusively with a game team, you will be responsible for creating these innovative and stunning effects, liaising with other artists and programmers whilst working with our in-house technology to ensure that our titles stay at the cutting edge.

DUTIES:

Particle Effects – The main focus and majority of time will be spent creating, implementing and optimising particle visual effects. Examples include fire, smoke, explosion trails and sparkle bursts.

Geometry Effects– Many effects include textured and animated 3D geometry. Examples include shockwaves and explosion debris.

Full Screen Effects – 2D ‘screen space' effects require special attention and specialist texture treatments. Examples include blur, vignettes and screen impact effects.

Surface Shader Effects – The ability to envision and implement special effects at the surface shader level is vital. The ability to create and control surface materials and their associated textures as well as a willingness to further learn these skills is crucial to the role.

Create and iteratively develop game assets from inception to final review on the target hardware within the game engine using appropriate tools.

ESSENTIALS:

Reference Sourcing – The visual effects artist is expected to have the ability and willingness to source and retain visual reference materials for use in the production of visual effects.

Specialist Asset Creation
• Textures – Visual effects artists are expected to create all necessary texture maps for the visual effects needs of a project. The ability to generate textures from scratch or from source images is a minimum requirement, as is a thorough understanding of texture files formats, memory overheads and blend modes. Colour optimisation and animated texture production are core skills.
• Geometry – Visual effects artists are required to model, texture and animate in 3D all necessary models for geometry based visual effects.

Analytical Skills
• Observation – The ability to view visual reference of an effect, deconstruct it and subsequently re-create it in a real-time game engine is essential.
• Optimisation – Strong skills in reducing the processing and memory overhead of the effects whilst maintaining overall visual fidelity is key.

Visual Style – Games are produced in any number of differing visual styles. Visual effects artists must be able to produce effects in keeping with the overall project art style.

Motion Dynamics - The ability to reference, perceive, re-create and embellish the signature movement patterns of visual effect elements is absolutely essential.

Teamwork – Strong communication skills and a willingness to work collaboratively within a multi-disciplinary team environment are vital.

Ingenuity - Visual effects artists are required to use whatever approach is necessary to achieve a good final effect by combining the use of software packages, BlitzTech, great art skills and superior reference.

BENEFICIAL QUALITIES:

Pre-visualisation – The ability to rapidly prototype visual effects using industry standard packages such as After Effects and Real Flow is a distinct advantage.

Hardware – An understanding of, and experience with, hardware accelerated visual effects systems such as GPU driven particle systems.

Attractive salary, benefits and a great career opportunity.