3D Artist

About This Role

This 3D Artist role on EA's Creative team brings The Sims characters to life through high-quality static renders and animations for Key Art, marketing, and social media. The position suits a deeply curious 3D artist with outstanding character animation skills, who also enjoys building efficient, artist-friendly pipelines and iterating on tools and processes to quickly move from concept to polished render.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with ACDs, Designers, and Creative Directors to create compelling, expressive character art that tells a story at a glance and embodies The Sims style
• Design iconic characters and build sets using the game
• Create static renders for marketing communications and internal projects using game art assets and proprietary tools
• Render animation and static images in Maya/Arnold, Marmoset Toolbag, and proprietary Game Engine
• Build/iterate on tools and pipeline to reduce workflow drag and free up time for creating
• Finish hi-res renders with traditional painting and photo-editing techniques in Photoshop
• Take work from brief/direction through final artwork from start to finish: sourcing assets, creating Sims, rough posing, iterating based on feedback, lighting and rendering, and final polish in 2D
• Collaborate with a diverse and multidisciplinary team
• Work within strict technical limitations and tight deadlines

Requirements

• 5+ years of animation/3D art experience in games or film
• Excellent organization skills; the pipeline will be used by multiple artists, so scalability and ease of onboarding are essential
• Proactive communicator, contributing to team discussions, flagging problems as they arise, talking through your ideas, etc.
• Problem-solver, looking for creative solutions and clever shortcuts, troubleshooting problems, researching, iterating, and always seeking to improve
• Know and love Maya, or at least know it like you love it
• Experience lighting and rendering in Arnold, using PBR materials
• Outstanding character animation skills; poses should tell stories, convey motion, and ooze personality; portfolio demonstrating strong character work is required
• Multi-disciplinary 3D craftsperson: comfortable in most areas of 3D art production, including up-rezzing low-res game textures, modeling simple props, lighting a scene, tweaking/troubleshooting game rigs, and animating
• Proficiency in Photoshop
• Takes initiative and refines processes
• Passion for 3D Art and Games!

Nice to have:

• After Effects skills

Benefits

• Paid time off (3 weeks per year to start)