Lead Lighting Artist

ABOUT BALLISTIC MOON

The Lead Lighting artist at Ballistic Moon reports directly to the Art team lead. This role is a pivotal hire for the art team and requires a creative artist with a cinematic eye and the technical understanding to deliver a given art vision. Good problem-solving capabilities and a good understanding of PBR pipelines are a must. You will be responsible for delivering and communicating the benchmark level for all lighting be it cinematics or gameplay. As lighting and shading are such a key features, your input and collaborative approach will be key to achieving our quality benchmarks.

Responsibilities

• Deliver high-quality lighting solutions.
• Be the studio point of contact for all lighting knowledge, both creative and technical, owning the creative vision for lighting.
• Be the advocate for lighting and shading and maintain best practices and in line with peer products.
• Create or oversee all lighting work, both in studio and outsourced.
• Create well written lighting documentation with clear examples and case studies.
• Work with Producers and the Art lead to ensure a realistic project scope.
• Manage and mentor studio lighting artists to ensure a preferred house style.

Qualifications/Skills

• Excellent communication, interpersonal, and organisational skills.
• Hold a high personal work standard and be the standard bearer for lighting benchmarks for the studio.
• Have working experience and hands on knowledge of lighting, post-pro optimisation and associated technical lighting and colour pipelines.
• A thorough knowledge of lighting be it cinematic, traditional or games.
• Can work effectively with outsource teams and provide clear and easy to follow guidance.
• Own implementation of lighting and PBR set up from start to finish.
• Positive and grounded attitude, open to collaboration.
• Able to communicate key ideas and simple wins both creatively and technically.
• Be able to work remotely.
• Friendly and collaborative nature; able to interact with other disciplines effectively

Required Experience

• Previous experience as a Senior lighting artist.
• An interesting portfolio showcasing a solid knowledge of lighting work and key discipline traits such as cinematic lighting, colour theory and dynamic vs baked approaches.
• Experience with lighting in a PBR pipeline/ game engine.
• Experience with PBR technical set up and a variety of different lighting approaches.
• Experience in Maya and a solid understanding of modern shader libraries; presentation experience in Marmoset, Substance, Vray, Unreal.
• 5+ years games industry experience required.
• Shipped at least one project throughout development cycle on console or PC-preferably as lead or senior.
• Comfortable presenting lighting work, updates and pre-production work to the development team and senior management
• A passion for games with a good understanding of the games industry, development cycles and professional workflows

Bonus Skills

• Working experience in UE4, Unity and in-house game engines such as Frostbite, the White engine or Decima.
• Knowledge and experience with lighting and post pro animation and a keen interest in cinematography.
• Experience in man management and mentoring.
• Has worked within an agile development methodology.