Principal Material Artist

Summary 

As a Principal Material Artist, you will be responsible for creating and maintaining a high-quality library of textures and materials that will serve as the backbone for all the game’s surfacing needs. 

Your contributions will include establishing the bar for visual quality, and asset efficiency that will set the tone for the product as a whole. You will create a range of materials that meet the high-level goals of both art and the overarching narrative. 

If you are a thoughtful, collaborative, creative individual who thrives in a team-oriented environment, we believe you’d fit right in, and we’d love to hear from you! 
 
Core Responsibilities  

• Reporting to the Environment Art Director and working primarily with the Environment Team, you will build, curate, and manage a core library of textures and materials to be used across the IP.  
• Collaborate across disciplines that might benefit from a shared library, including our VFX and Character teams.  
• Work with Technical Art teams to co-develop our layered material system and customize it to meet the specific needs of the IP.  
• Work with Tech Art and Lighting counterparts to ensure consistency in our surface response across the game in all lighting scenarios. 
• Establish the visual quality bar across all surface types for both internal teams and external partners. 
• Communicate across internal and external teams new and evolving materials and textures.  Ensuring continuity of quality, style, execution and efficiency in our process and pipelines. 
• Define pipelines supporting assets from Substance Designer, Substance Painter, and photogrammetry source data.  
• Work with production, leads, and directors to ensure assets are delivered on time and to quality. 
• Mentor and provide feedback to other Material Artists, fostering a culture of artistic growth and excellence.  

Core Qualifications  

• 6+ years of professional experience as a 3D Artist for games.  
• Experience working on AAA games through the full development cycle (from concept to ship) as an embedded member of a studio development team strongly preferred.  
• Portfolio of highly detailed surfaces with a focus on realistic material development displaying a range of surface types from naturalistic, artificial, and foliage.  
• Mastery of relevant software packages such as Max, Blender, Maya, Photoshop, Substance Designer, Substance Painter. 
• A service minded approach to helping teams and departments achieve their goals. 
• Knowledge of physically based rendering (PBR) texture and material workflows.  
• Experience creating and understanding material graphs. The ability to quickly prototype and communicate to Technical Art the needs of a robust material pipeline is a big plus.  
• Excellent communication and cross-departmental skills.   

Plus If... 

• Experience with Unreal Engine 5. 
• Strong fundamental art skills with an eye for color, form, composition and narrative storytelling.  
• Experience incorporating photogrammetry into your material authoring workflow. 

Description 

• Full-time job with benefits. 
• Role is on-site in Santa Monica, CA. 
• Office is located near downtown Santa Monica – near metro and freeways. 

The base pay range for this position is $140,000 to $170,000 per year. Actual compensation is based on market location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. We also offer a competitive package of benefits including vacation time, sick time, company holidays, parental leave, medical/dental/vision insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, and 401(k) match to regular full-time employees. Certain roles may also be eligible for bonus and equity.