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Senior VFX Artist
2 years ago
Ascendant Studios is in search of a Senior VFX Artist to help develop industry leading visual effects for our brand new IP. Our ideal applicant will have a wealth of experience creating top tier effects. Previous experience with UE4 a big plus.
This position can be remote or in-person. Our new office, set in an old bank (yes, we kept the vault, aka our game room), has just opened after a 2 year renovation, steps away from shops, restaurants, and San Rafael’s vibrant downtown.
Founded by industry veterans, Ascendant Studios is a fully independent AAA game studio committed to making richly detailed, visceral, narrative-driven action games of the highest quality that players will never forget. We are currently working on our first title, an imaginative and original new IP, which we have complete ownership and creative control of.
What you'll do:
- Create visual effects that communicate the visual pillars of the game.
- A critical eye and strong understanding of the FX systems and real-time engine performance
- Find effective solutions to solve difficult problems in production.
- Implement creative optimization solutions without sacrificing visual quality.
- Using cutting-edge effects techniques, create all types of photorealistic, high quality effects for environments and dynamic systems. Create new effect textures from scratch and, where possible, improve on existing ones.
- Concept, prototype, present new effects, dynamic environments, objects; partner with internal teams (artists, animators, designers, and engineers) to ensure visual quality bar is met.
Who you are:
- 4+ years of professional experience as a VFX artist in the video game industry
- Advanced skills in 3D/2D Software - Maya, 3DS Max, Photoshop
- Experience creating high-quality “AAA” real-time VFX and understanding of modern-day real-time FX systems, engines and technology
- High proficiency in VFX development, including fundamentals like timing, shape language, color theory
Bonus points:
- Shipped at least one recent AAA title as a VFX Artist.
- Experience with Houdini in a production environment.
- Experience in Unreal Engine VFX tools and Materials
- Experience working in several game development tools, pipelines, and game engines
More About Ascendant:
Located in beautiful San Rafael, California, in the heart of the San Francisco Bay area, Ascendant is founded by Bret Robbins, creative director and visionary behind the original Dead Space, as well as the campaigns for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Advanced Warfare, and WWII. The studio’s leadership has assembled a team of industry veterans with more than 600 combined years of BAFTA and Game of the Year award-winning experience on beloved franchises such as Telltale's The Walking Dead, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Borderlands, The Wolf Among Us, Mafia, Tomb Raider, Gears of War, Metal Gear Solid, The Elder Scrolls, Call of Duty, Dead Space and Bioshock.
At Ascendant, everyone on our dispersed, 90+ person team is encouraged to contribute ideas to our new IP. We value creativity, inclusivity, equality, collaboration and professionalism, and we are fostering a fun, mature and ego-less studio culture built on a foundation of respect and an earnest top-down belief in a healthy work/life balance.
We believe that teams with varied backgrounds and life experiences make better games. We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate on the basis of age, disability status, gender expression or identity, marital status, national origin, sexual orientation, race, religion, veteran status, or any other category protected by law.
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