We are looking for a Lighting Artist to join the Art & Animation team as a Contractor. They will play a key role in defining and enhancing the game’s visual atmosphere by implementing and refining lighting across various scenes and environments. The ideal candidate will possess a keen eye for colour, contrast, and visual composition, combined with a strong technical foundation in Unity’s lighting systems. This role will collaborate closely with the environment and all tech teams to ensure that lighting enhances both gameplay and aesthetics, delivering a cohesive visual experience across the project.
Key Responsibilities
Lighting Setup and Adjustments:
* Set up and maintain lighting across environments, character scenes, and cutscenes in Unity, ensuring they align with the game’s artistic vision and technical requirements.
* Make real-time adjustments to lighting setups based on team feedback, optimizing performance while preserving visual fidelity.
Atmospheric Lighting and Mood Creation:
* Work closely with the Head of Art & Animation and Environment Artists to develop atmospheric lighting that enhances the visuals within the game.
* Use lighting creatively to reinforce gameplay, and player immersion across different game settings.
Collaborate with Art and Technical Teams:
* Partner with environment artists and technical artists to ensure lighting works seamlessly with other visual components, enhancing cohesion and consistency in scenes.
* Coordinate with technical art to balance visual quality and performance, ensuring lighting is efficient for real-time performance on targeted platforms.
Scene Optimisation and Debugging:
* Identify and resolve technical and performance issues related to lighting, such as real-time shadows, global illumination, and post-processing, using profiling tools and techniques in Unity.
* Collaborate with engineers to debug any lighting-related issues, ensuring assets meet performance and quality standards across devices.
Lighting Tool Usage and Shader Knowledge:
* Leverage Unity's lighting tools within URP, such as light probes, reflection probes, and lighting volumes, to achieve realistic lighting effects that align with project goals.
* Basic shader knowledge, with the ability to adjust or customize shaders in Unity as necessary to enhance visual effects related to lighting is a benefit.
Process Adherence and Detail Orientation:
* Follow established workflows and best practices, avoiding ad-hoc solutions in favour of structured approaches that can be easily maintained and scaled.
* Ensure all lighting assets and methods adhere to the project’s technical and aesthetic standards, with detailed documentation for future updates.
Lighting Polish and Review:
* Continuously refine lighting elements through feedback cycles, ensuring consistency with the project’s vision and maintaining a high standard of visual quality.
* Proactively share progress with the art team, being open to feedback and ready to iterate to align with broader art and design goals.
Knowledge, Skills, and Experience
* 2-3 years of experience in lighting for real-time environments, preferably within a game development setting, using Unity.
* Demonstrated experience in lighting environments for interactive media, with a strong portfolio showcasing work on completed games or similar projects.
* Proficiency in Unity’s lighting systems, including global illumination, lightmapping, post-processing, and environment lighting techniques.
* Familiarity with profiling and optimisation techniques, ensuring real-time lighting runs efficiently across various hardware using URP.
* Knowledge of basic shader adjustment in Unity for visual effects related to lighting.
* A solid understanding of colour theory, composition, and visual storytelling.
* Strong sense of mood and atmosphere creation through lighting, able to bring environments to life with attention to detail and thematic consistency.
* Strong communication skills with the ability to work collaboratively and respond to feedback constructively.
* Experience with other industry-standard software and tools, such as Photoshop or Substance for texture support related to lighting.
* Understanding of URP in Unity, with experience in leveraging this for high-quality lighting.
* Familiarity with procedural lighting tools or dynamic lighting systems.
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