Technical Artist - Valorant

Job Description

As part of the Technical Art team, you will oversee tool creation and maintenance for all art disciplines. Working closely with animation, modeling, and maps teams, you will uncover new ways to improve workflow and ensure functionality, consistency, and quality. As a support, you will make sure our pipeline is adapting correctly to the creative needs of the product, while also helping inform our creative direction from an art content production view.

VALORANT is Riot's take on a character-based tactical shooter (for more info on VALORANT click here!). You will support animators, 3D modelers, and VFX artists on the Premium Content team as they create assets, developing scripts to help improve their workflows and remove technical barriers and inefficiencies.

You will create weapons assets, set them up in the Unreal Engine, and work closely with developers of all disciplines to bring these characters to life. Your work in the engine will include setting up weapons assets, setting up audio dynamics, and creating runtime VFX solutions.

Responsibilities:
• Level up the end-to-end workflow for our many art disciplines that relates to Premium Content ( Guns/Buddies/Sprays )
• Provide technical support to artists working from our art workflows, collecting data to further improve the tools they are using
• Produce technical assets (such as shaders/materials/Blueprints/Skeletal Assets)
• Prototype new art assets and explore varied avenues to execute them
• Revisit and improve legacy assets to meet the modern needs of Valorant
• Work with engineering to set and enforce memory budgets
• Collaborate with production to develop a long-term strategy to maintain and evolve the art workflows for your product
• Build close relationships with the artists, tech artists, and engineers you work alongside with to understand their needs and provide leadership on tool and pipeline development
• Be a proactive mentor for other Technical Artists in their craft

Required Qualifications:
• 5+ years experience as a technical artist in games or related industries
• Experience in Unreal/Blueprint
• Experience in programming in Python
• Strong art skills with experience and an understanding of modeling, shaders, texturing, & lighting for games
• Experience working with game engine scripting and materials, and real-time lighting and workflows
• Highly proficient communication skills and capacity to act as an ambassador between art and engineering
• Superb critical thinking skills, particularly as it pertains to translating artistic requirements to sustainable workflow design

Desired Qualifications:
• Expertise in content creation and tool development in DCC tools, especially Maya, and Photoshop
• Experience with developing tools in Unreal
• As a part of the application process, candidates will be expected to provide a portfolio or demo reel of their work and may be asked to complete an art test.
Our Perks:

Riot has a focus on work/life balance, shown by our open paid time off policy, in addition to other perks such as flexible work schedules. We offer medical, dental, and life insurance, parental leave for you, your spouse/domestic partner and children, and a 401k with company match. Check out our benefits pages for more information.

Riot Games fosters a player and workplace experience that values teamwork embodied by the Summoner's Code and Community Code. Our culture embraces differences as a strength, and our values are the guiding principles for how we approach work. We are committed to putting diversity and inclusion (D&I) at the center of everything we do, and promoting a fair and collaborative culture where Rioters treat one another with dignity and respect. We encourage you to read more about our value of thriving together and our ongoing work to build the most inclusive company in Gaming. It's our policy to provide equal employment opportunity for all applicants and members of Riot Games, Inc. Riot Games makes reasonable accommodations for handicapped and disabled Rioters and does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, handicap, veteran status, marital status, criminal history, or any other category protected by applicable federal and state law, including the City of Los Angeles' Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance relating to an applicant's criminal history.

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-d85o96-18-216-94-152-42 in your application.