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full time Technical Art Director

at Radical in Vancouver

YOU MUST APPLY AT http://www.radical.ca/open_positions.cfm
YOU MUST APPLY AT http://www.radical.ca/open_positions.cfm
YOU MUST APPLY AT http://www.radical.ca/open_positions.cfm

POSITION SUMMARY

The Technical Art Director works in collaboration with the Art Director and the Technical Director to define technical art methods and processes that aim to achieve high quality game art for our Next Generation games. Based on his/her particular domain of expertise, this person is responsible for providing support to Artists, including game content pipeline design, support and maintenance, special effects, shading, lighting, rendering, animation, motion capture and modeling. The Technical Art Director is a good communicator who can provide the requisite training, documentation and design to a group of Artists.

REPORTING STRUCTURE

This person reports to the Art Director. The Technical Art Director collaborates with the Technical Director, Associate Art Director, Art Production Manager and Lead Artists to establish and maintain efficient technical art processes.

ROLE & RESPONSIBILITIES

* Ensures that art and animation are not compromised by the limitations of technical processes * Focuses on technical implementation of visual design * Researches and develops on current trends in game visuals and other runtime components * Researches and helps in art technology issues related to the game * Acts as a bridge between the Artists and the Engineers * Communicates technical concepts to non-technical staff * Implements and maintains solutions for art technology and art dependencies * Provides a good example to all art staff (internal and 3rd party) and facilitates positive morale by reinforcing the “one-team” and “mutual respect” culture * Participates through personal involvement and effort in the attainment of short-term objectives for one or more assigned processes/projects * Serves as a technical/content resource to assigned processes/projects, assisting in the resolution of complex problems * Directs the work of a small staff of professionals * Interacts with management to keep abreast of the objectives of assigned processes/projects * Interacts with management and peers in other units * Builds and enhances important internal and external contacts * Communicates to transmit and interpret complex information * Reviews work relative to the attainment of defined milestones of assigned processes/projects

DAILY TASKS

* Provides technical guidance to Artists and Programmers throughout the product development process * Works with Producers to meet art direction requirements while maintaining game play standard * Ensures that end products meet defined technical and quality standards * Stays abreast of state-of-the-art tools, software and technology for art production and recommends new and modified art software appropriate for games * Recommends tools, workflow, pipelines and runtime components relevant to implementing the art direction of the game (includes research and development on commercially available tools) * Takes on the responsibility for all technical decisions made for art in products * Develops offline prototypes to help illustrate art direction elements and to offer solutions * Helps train artists on toolsets and pipelines * Resolves art pipeline issues (build systems, batch files, file conversions) * Determines workflow for moving art (models, animations, textures) from source to in-game * Writes scripts for Maya and 3DS MAX * Writes small Windows applications * Writes complex DOS/Unix scripts * Sets short-term (one-year) strategic and functional objectives * Provides input to strategies and objectives of major processes/projects * Understands the affects of content creation from game-play and architecture issues to successfully develop workflows that will compensate for such limitations on artistic content * Encourages resolution to conflicts through identifying positive steps and responsibilities

SKILLS & EXPERIENCE / QUALIFICATIONS:

* 8 or more years creating art and art production technology * 4 or more years as a Lead Artist or Technical Artist * Excellent leadership, communication, interpersonal, and organizational skills * Prior experience writing technique guides or equivalent detailed technical specifications for game art * Strong working knowledge of 3DStudioMax, Maya and Photoshop * Ability to write scripts in MEL, Python or similar language * Prior experience working with third-party developers and assisting in the delivery of AAA games

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Published at 14-02-2008
Viewed: 99 times
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