Principal 3D Artist

Summary  

Ghost Story Games is seeking a talented Principal 3D Artist to join us on Judas, the highly anticipated game led by Ken Levine (System Shock 2, BioShock series).  Unique in its creative vision, Judas is also built upon novel technology by which the visual world, gameplay, and story unfolds in meaningful, dynamic ways.  The result is a significant and personal journey adapted to each player’s experience and offers a new approach to the art and storytelling of video games.   

For the Principal 3D Artist role, you should be experienced in a breadth and depth of generalist real-time CG expertise, including modeling, materials, and lighting.  With close collaboration with Design, Narrative, Tech, and Art you will apply this broader expertise as a key driver of look development and production visuals, with the goal to establish the broad strokes of ambitious and visually compelling art features and doing in a way that is both practical to schedule and performance scalability.   

While not considered exclusively an environment art position, there will be weighting of responsibilities towards world and prop set-piece tasks, particularly those that require a significant degree of independence and autonomy in approach, and a balanced application of Modeling, Material, and (light) VFX / Tech Art skills to achieve the intended vision.   

At Ghost Story Games we place the utmost importance on memorable, immersive visual storytelling, through all aspects of the game experience, and the close team collaboration necessary to realize a shared vision together.  Join us and play a key role in Judas’ success! 

Responsibilities:  

• Plan, pitch, prototype, and execute visually stunning settings and set pieces that are well attuned to the gameplay experience and tell bold, cohesive visual stories in support of the script and overall vision of world 

• Collaborate with Art, Design, and Tech to build successful features with a more complex balance of aesthetic, performance, and gameplay experience requirements. 

• Serve as the key driver of all visual assets supporting spaces under your responsibility.  This includes highly proactive and collaborative engagement with Art Leadership, Level and Narrative Design, Concept Art, and External Art Vendors  

• As a Principal 3D Artist, you are expected to help uphold the high standards of aesthetic and technical quality of your own work and leverage your expertise to identify opportunities for both visual and technical quality improvements across the project and effectively pitch to project leadership 

What We Are Looking For:  

• Established experience in the game industry as a Senior to Principal Artist, preferably with experience working with larger, complex productions 

• Proficient art and technical experience within a real-time Game Engine (Unreal 4 is a plus). 

• Experienced eye for form, line, value, rhythm, composition, and crafting deliberate visual hierarchy reads (focus direction, small-medium-large shape balance, ‘80/20 rule’) 

• Familiarity with performance evaluation and optimization – working mindfully within metrics to maintain a smooth player experience 

• Experience with effective team-based iteration techniques, including a thoughtful consideration of the bigger picture of the overall game experience and creative vision and an ‘order of operation’ and ‘ROI’ approach to iterative development.   

• Ability to learn and understand technical tools and systems so they can be pushed to the limit to create the most visually interesting spaces 

Who you are:  

• Proactive problem solver that enjoys cross-department collaboration, asks engaging questions, and can thoughtfully pitch both creative and visual ideas, as well as technical and process improvements to benefit the quality and efficiency of the project 

• For the Principal role, we are especially looking for individuals with experience and mindfulness towards both individual and team efficiency, and proven ability to work on more challenging cross-functional tasks with a very high degree of ambiguity and autonomy 

• As a Principal 3D Artist you are expected to serve as a significantly positive force multiplier across the team, both sharing your expertise to mentor other artists and to help them solve problems, as well as representing a model for proactive, supportive collaboration across all other departments of the studio 

Pluses:  

• Passion for deeply narrative driven games, particularly First Person Shooters.  

• Additional traditional art, lighting, or cinematography background 

• Experience working effectively and collaborative with a diverse mix of internal and distributed teams