Senior VFX Artist

Job Description

Senior VFX Artist

Electronic Arts Inc. is a leading global interactive entertainment software company. EA delivers games, content and online services for Internet-connected consoles, personal computers, mobile phones and tablets.

Creativity, Collaboration, and Communication are what make Maxis tick as we prepare ourselves for massive amounts of growth and an incredible amount of fun. We want to engage our players and create the most entertaining titles in the world. Come and see for yourself, the future is here.

At Maxis we're pushing the boundaries on every front, so you'll get a chance to stretch beyond your comfort zone and learn while you contribute. Our team culture is collaborative and creativity oriented. We expect everyone to think like game makers and approach development with a Player First perspective.

Maxis in Austin, Texas is looking for a Senior VFX Artist to join our successful development team working on a new IP.

The Role

As the Senior VFX Artist, you report to the Development Director and work with the Art Director and technical Leads to determine visual standards and technical specifications of VFX for the project. You enhance the visual quality of the game by creating high quality real-time visual effects that are performant across multiple platforms. You may also work with external partners to provide work that meets the project standards.

You will excel in a collaborative environment, embrace constructive feedback and enjoy the creative process of bringing the visuals to life.

Responsibilities
• Work with art director and technical partners to develop the look and feel of VFX for the project.
• Work with Technical Art, Engineering and artists to develop project VFX pipelines.
• Create and implement visually stunning real-time visual effects.
• Improve visual effects to be performant on all supported platforms.
• Work with production and operations partners to map out VFX development for the project and advise on factors such as resources, tools, and technology ramp up.
• Create and maintain VFX documentation for the team.
• Participate in milestone planning and reviews.
• Review work from external partners and provide feedback.

Requirements
• Minimum of 5 years of production experience using game engines to create real-time VFX
• Have served as a Senior or Lead VFX Artist on a published title and have shipping experience on multiple game titles.
• Experience developing consistent visual language across an eco-system of effects.
• Experience producing various types of visual effects as environmental/elemental, projectiles, beams, impacts, destruction, and cloth.
• Experience creating optimized and performant advanced real-time visual effects out of a variety of building blocks including particles, static textures, animated textures, lights, post processing, materials, meshes and shaders.
• Excellent composition/framing skills and sense of scale, timing, detail, form, texture and color.
• Can author stylized interpretations of real-world visual effects and stylized 2D visual effect animations.
• Experience creating 3D assets and materials in other packages to support effects [Maya, Houdini, Nuke, Substance Designer, Photoshop, After Effects].
• Unreal Engine Proficiency with Cascade or Niagara, and visual scripting thru node-based systems.
• Can technically deconstruct visual effects from other game and film references.
• Experience with animation/modeling/texturing pipelines.

Materials required for Application
• Portfolio or Reel (by website, blog, or online gallery)
• Resume/CV

Benefits include relocation, extended health and dental, group RRSP & bonus program

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-reoom8-18-222-121-170-42 in your application.