Entry-Level 3D Character Artist

As an entry-level 3D Character Artist at PTW, you will be an integral part of our talented art team, responsible for crafting captivating characters that align with concept art and design specifications. This role offers a great opportunity to develop your skills and grow in the gaming industry while working closely with experienced professionals in a collaborative and supportive environment.

Key Responsibilities:

• Create both low-poly and high-poly 3D character models that align with concept art and design guidelines, contributing to the visual identity of our AA/AAA games.

• Texture characters using hand-painted or PBR workflows, ensuring they are aesthetically pleasing and well-suited for in-game integration.

• Collaborate closely with the animation team to ensure proper deformation and rigging of characters, enhancing their realism and fluidity of movement.

• Utilize industry-standard 3D software, such as Maya, ZBrush, and Substance Painter, to bring your artistic vision to life and meet project requirements.

• Familiarize yourself with integrating final delivery assets into game engines like Unity and/or Unreal, ensuring a seamless transition of characters into the gaming environment.

• Embrace the opportunity to learn from senior artists and participate in art reviews, incorporating feedback to continuously improve your skills and contribute to the overall project quality.

Requirements

• BA in Art Media, graphic design or equivalent relevant experience (bachelor's in fine arts, computer animation, illustration, digital arts, media arts or master's of fine arts in animation or visual effects for example).

• Previous AAA/Indie/PC games, mobile games and NFT projects or at minimum a passion for games and knowledge of the gaming industry.

• Good understanding of creative briefs, able to consider elements such as context, timescales and creative constraints when solving tasks.

• A keen eye for spinning narrative and life into a character, props and special effects.

• Excellent time management skills, able to meet deadlines and multitask.

• Excellent creative thinking skills, able to solve creative problems through innovative solutions, balancing flow, function and aesthetics.

• Solid understanding of both realistic and cartoon human/creature poses and keyframe animations.

• Proficient skills at creating facial expressions and animations in conjunction with blendshapes or similar.

• The ability to provide multiple creative options, then iterate upon them as projects progress.

• Knowledge of computer 2D/3D animation techniques, motion design and camera movement principles. Able to animate characters, objects and special effects.

• Skilled at working within Maya and Motion Capture data to create the animations.

• Experienced with animation mockups, able to plan and generate asset libraries to help smooth the pipeline.

• Strong collaborative attitude. A receptive individual who's open to take feedback and working together with team-mates on streamlining and improving the animation pipelines/processes and deliverables.

• Experienced with working across departments to provide the most optimized format for the best in-game performance.

• High level of proficiency in 2D/3D editing and software tools like Maya, After Effects CC, Premier Pro CC, Adobe Flash, Animate CC environment, Photoshop CC and Illustrator CC to be able to deliver any kind of good quality 2D/3D assets.

• Supportive attitude, eager to guide other animators in the team and take ownership.

• Fluency in written and spoken English.

Nice to have:

• A solid background in academic drawing, sketching and/or illustration is a major asset.

• Ability to draw in a variety of styles and genres with knowledge of lighting, perspective, material finishes and special effects, and a cinematic eye for lighting and shading.

• Big plus: proficiency with Unity (or another game engine), with the ability to import, export and set up the animation state machine with devs and troubleshoot issues.

• Experience with 3D tools, texturing in both Low/High poly and texture painting skills.

• Knowledge of animation, Illustrator, Flash, Unity engine, particle effects creation programs (e.g. combustion, particle illusion, fork) and motion graphics programs (eg After Effects).

• Good understanding of the 2D/3D rigging process and different technical software.

Benefits

What we offer:

• You will be working for the pre-eminent global provider of specialist services to the games industry and provided with full training and the opportunity to work on some of the biggest game clients, titles, projects, and tech in the world.
• Attractive remuneration, holidays, regular team competitions with great prizes; and inclusion into an extensive social calendar. Our environments thrive with collaborative team-work with people from all around the world, different nationalities, and languages.
• A supportive community inclusive of LGBTQ+, and any age, ethnicity, religion, or disability. We care about the wellbeing of our employees and have a dedicated employee wellbeing programme. We empower our people and offer regular progression opportunities to ensure our employees flourish.
• Learn as you work and be part of something real that changes the face of gaming - forever.
• Working with a global multi-lingual workforce with superb training and promotion and progression opportunities.

About us:

PTW is a boutique-with-scale games services company with over 40 studios in 12 countries worldwide. Our range of services includes art and audio production, game development, quality assurance, player support, community management, localization, localization QA, voice production, and data collection.

PTW Bucharest opened its doors in 2016 and has grown from providing Player Support to a range of mobile and AAA games publishers to also offering QA and Localization QA services.

We’re part of a global team of passionate, hard-working, ambitious gamers, whose goal is always to make every gamer’s experience as perfect as possible. For over 25 years, PTW has been providing industry-leading services to every part of the globe. From our humble beginnings as a single office in Japan in 1994, we’ve become a global force with offices across North America, Europe, India, and Asia. The PTW family of brands includes SIDE, 1518 Studios, entalize, and OR Esports. For more information, visit www.ptw.com and https://1518studios.com/

Welcome to PTW