Technical Artist, Virtual Production

Job Description

What we do

At the core of Epic's success are talented, passionate people. Epic prides itself on creating a collaborative, welcoming, and creative environment. Whether it's building award-winning games or crafting engine technology that enables others to make visually stunning interactive experiences, we're always innovating.

Unreal Engine is at the forefront of the virtual production revolution with applications in previsualization, virtual reality, in-camera visual effects, animation, live-broadcast, and final-pixel visual effects for film and television production.

Being Epic means being a part of a team that continually strives to do right by our community and users. We're constantly innovating to raise the bar of engine and game development.

What you'll do

Epic Games and the Unreal Engine development team are looking for a seasoned Virtual Production Technical Artist to push the boundaries of virtual production technology workflows in animation, visual effects, and traditional filmmaking.

As a Technical Artist focused on Virtual Production, you will play a key role in guiding the development of Unreal Engine for use in live entertainment, broadcast and linear content creation – using your industry expertise to identify the needs of creatives, prototype upcoming features, and provide hands-on support for productions both internal and external.

This position requires a person with a unique combination of artistic, technical, and practical skills who is ready to take on bleeding-edge challenges and help shape the future of real-time Virtual Production.

In this role, you will
• Work closely with external customers to deliver industry-leading projects that utilize Unreal Engine and real-time technology to the fullest.
• Act as the direct link between Unreal Engine users and the development team - visit studios and embed with productions as needed to help them learn and do what it takes to succeed.
• Apply experience and knowledge to help optimize Unreal Engine deployment for virtual production, linear content creation, and live-broadcast workflows in real-world situations.
• Clearly understand production requirements and translate them into recommendations for both external customers and internal Unreal Engine development.
• Identify bottlenecks and limitations in Unreal Engine pipeline and tools, and help to design and implement solutions.
• Prototype tools and features to address the needs of large-scale productions, and work with engineering teams to grow these prototypes into full-fledged engine features.
• Act as a hands-on stage operator for internal productions utilizing motion capture, in-camera visual effects, and other technologies..
• Provide technical art support to internal projects ranging from editor tools to sequencer-based shot construction and niagara effects.
• Travel as needed when safety allows.

What we're looking for
• Direct Virtual Production experience with Unreal Engine on real world projects.
• Strong understanding of multiple aspects of the Unreal Editor including the creation of sophisticated Editor Blueprints, Sequencer workflows, LiveLink, and nDisplay.
• Expertise in film & television or live-broadcast practices and processes.
• Expertise with body and facial motion capture, live camera tracking, data recording, virtual cameras, or in-camera visual effects.
• Ability to communicate complex technical issues to engine developers and product managers.
• Desire to both teach others and learn new techniques, becoming the industry expert on new features and practices as they arise.

Nice to have skills
• Basic C++ literacy is a plus.
• Domain knowledge of layout/environment assembly, animation, lighting, or look development is a plus.
• Openness to speak at one-to-many situations such as trade shows, Epic Dev Days, presentations at developer studios, etc.
• Willingness to travel.

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-d97939-3-148-102-90-42 in your application.