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Associate Environment Art Director
3 years ago
Established in 2004, Lakshya Digital, a Keywords Studio, is the largest interactive entertainment and game development services studio in South Asia. We have game production studios in Gurgaon and Pune, and business offices in Tokyo, Japan and San Diego, California.
Our continued success is fueling the need to support overseas growth in India and Japan, as well as further expansion in the US. We are looking for top quality talent to become part of our studio in Redmond, WA, to help facilitate this effort. If you have grown weary of working on the same project doing the same thing from year to year, or if you are interested in experiencing what it is like to simultaneously work on a variety of projects, then dust off your resume, polish up your portfolio and send it to us for consideration.
This Position will require being local to Bothell, Washington. It will begin as WFH during COVID, but afterwards will require you being in our Bothell, WA studio location.
As the Associate Art Director, you will supervise a team to ensure the consistent delivery of top quality environmnet content, documentation, and production plans that satisfy both externally and internally created specifications for multiple projects. The Associate Art Director must be able to thrive in a highly dynamic and collaborative environment, by being highly organized and detail oriented, with exceptional oral and written communication skills. Our Associate Art Director must possess relevant technical skills used in a Lead or Associate Art Director role on at least one AAA Current Gen console game. Previous experience working with an external art team, or as a service vendor, is a big plus.
Responsibilities:
- Interface directly with clients to understand their needs and form a solid working relationship.
- Collaborate with teams, both on site and oversees, to find production solutions that uphold the client’s quality expectations and adhere to established technical requirements. Contributing innovative and original ideas towards all aspects of production and support of PMs and Account Managers.
- Preproduction support for Environment, Vehicle and/or Prop content including the creation of technical and artistic specifications for art assets, as well as establishing production pipelines per client requirements.
- Contribute to internal studio training efforts, working with teams in India and Japan to internalize established processes and best practices. Overseas travel may be required to fully support this initiative.
- Demonstrate and facilitate a strong understanding of color, light, and visual design.
- Able to prioritize and provide feedback and review for more than two projects at a time.
- Work with the Project Managers and other leads and artists to identify risks, develop solid estimates, pipelines, schedules, and production plans.
- Manage and mentor Outsource Artists that report to them. Demonstrate, communicate, and exemplify clear expectations for quality of work, productivity, communication, and professionalism to the team.
- Responsible for the quality of all incoming art assets from the projects they are leading and the projects of their direct reports which could include as many as 3 projects and teams of 75+ 3D artists. Actively works to improve approval ratio for their team by providing clear and concise visual and written feedback.
- Depending on the project needs, able to create assets in a variety of software packages including, Maya, 3DS Max, Zbrush, Substance, and Photoshop.
Requirements
- A minimum of 10 years’ industry experience with at least one title shipped in a Lead or Associate Art Director Role.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills and strong understanding of issue tracking tools like JIRA, or Shotgun.
- An expert-level understanding for current-gen game content development processes, pipelines, limitations, and dependencies as it relates to character creation.
- Skilled with current tools and technologies; Maya or Max, UE4, Unity, Zbrush, Photoshop, and Substance Designer/Painter.
- 3D sculpting, modeling, texturing, and material creation skills for creating game content with the proven ability to produce and direct the production of top quality current generation content in a variety of styles for play on multiple platforms.
- Able to analyze and understand client aesthetic requirements and translate that into workable feedback for external art teams.
- Demonstrated ability to be proactive and self-motivated, work without direct supervision, and present the work of the team and the project in a professional manner.
- Previous team leadership experience required on multiple projects; having demonstrated the ability to mentor less experienced artists to achieve top quality and consistent results.
- Must be able to potentially travel internationally 10-20% of the year.
- BA or equivalent industry experience.
Nice to Haves:
- Software Knowledge: SpeedTree, World Builder, Houdini, Substance Designer
- Understanding of procedural environment design
- Hard Surface Modeling experience
Benefits
- Medical, Dental, Vision benefits
- Voluntary Long-term / Short-term Disability
- 401K w/ company match
- Work alongside dynamic individuals in the gaming industry
- Work within a company with upward career growth opportunities
- Convenient location in Redmond
- Open/No Cost parking
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