Lead VFX Artist

Overview

Lead VFX Artist Jobs in Canada at People Can Fly Studio

Title: Lead VFX Artist

Company: People Can Fly Studio

Location: Canada

People Can Fly is one of the leading independent AAA game development studios. Our international team consists of hundreds of talented individuals working from offices in Poland, the UK, Ireland, the US, and Canada, as well as remotely across the globe.

Founded in 2002, we made our mark on the shooter genre with titles such as Painkiller, Bulletstorm, Gears of War: Judgment, and Outriders. As one of the most experienced Unreal Engine studios in the industry, we continue to expand on our expertise and push the boundaries of what’s possible in game development.

Our creative teams are currently working on several exciting titles: Gears of War: E-Day developed in collaboration with Microsoft; Project Echo for KRAFTON; and Lost Rift, an original IP we are developing in-house under our self-publishing model. We are also exploring new platforms and experiences with VR and other unannounced projects.

With over 20 years of experience, PCF continues to explore new horizons. We aim to combine our expertise with the creativity of the best and most forward-thinking talent in the industry, building the next generation of action games for players worldwide.

If you join us on this journey, you’ll have the chance to perfect your craft, expand your knowledge, and work alongside industry leaders to create unique, unforgettable experiences for gamers everywhere.

Job Description

Leadership

• Lead a team and foster an engaging atmosphere within their team to achieve best possible result for the project and personal growth of team members.

Maintain artistic direction and quality

• Produce high quality VFX creation suitable technically and artistically with the project's universe and visual direction.
• Collaborate on setting artistic vision with the Art Director, as well as maintaining the quality standards across the entire development pipeline.
• Translate concept art and any other available game design documents into prototype and implement it as real-time VFX in game.
• Oversee and facilitate the creation of ambient environment effects that enhance mood, tell a story, and make the world feel alive.

Production/Deadline

• Produce work within specifications and maintain workflow pipelines within given deadlines.
• Work closely with the production team on tasks assignment and schedule to meet deadlines, also ensuring healthy work-life balance by setting clear expectations and scope of work.
• Supervision of bug fixing and describing R&D case studies in knowledge base.
• Understand and employ established asset organizational structures and naming conventions to ensure cohesion within the VFX pipeline.

Feedback

• Provide day-to-day feedback improvement to visual quality.
• Working with the team to find solutions and creatively solve problems.
• Oversee and facilitate the creation of gameplay effects that make the world feel exciting, and that give the player necessary gameplay feedback.

Collaboration/Communication

• Knowledge sharing and mentoring peers.
• Collaborate with Tech Art and drive R&D initiatives, to explore new techniques and implement improvements to pipelines and workflows.
• Work with developers in multiple disciplines and ensure that work gets integrated into the build.
• Collaborates and communicates effectively across departments with other Leads, Directors, and project stakeholders to ensure efficiency and minimize miscommunication.
• Work with designers to create effects for scripted events and story moments.
• Work with the lighting department to create atmosphere, a sense of depth in the scene, and to reinforce the color palette.
• Conduct consistent performance and compensation reviews of staff members.
• Conduct recruitment projects with HR collaboration.
• Conduct onboarding to new hires.

Other artistic specificity

• Create high-fidelity effects for cinematics and marketing material.
• Innovate new techniques for next-gen hardware, and work with engineers and tech art to expand the VFX toolset.
• Analyze scenes for performance issues, and ensure all effects are built in the most efficient way possible.
• Use every tool at your disposal to create effects for the game (traditional particles, pixel shaders and vertex shaders for animated materials, baked physics simulations, stock animation, etc.).
• Track and seek awareness of state-of-the-art industry practices in order to influence the VFX pipeline direction.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in console or PC game development including 5+ year in Unreal Engine and prior experience in any leadership capacity.
• A strong portfolio showcasing examples of real-time VFX work at a AAA quality.
• Excellent knowledge of industry-standard software packages for modeling, high-poly sculpting (Maya, Max, ZBrush, Photoshop, or their equivalents).
• Excellent understanding of the principles of animation.
• A critical eye and great feeling for the motion of real world objects and VFX.
• Solid understanding of the constraints of real-time VFX.
• Artistically interpret concepts or creatively push beyond an initial ideation .
• Excellent understanding of art fundamentals (shape, form, texture, value and color) and anatomical knowledge of both bipedal and quadrupedal forms.
• Solid understanding of the constraints of real-time VFX.
• Solid experience with a variety of techniques and tools for creating VFX animation (standard particle systems, fluid sims, physics sims, etc.).
• Solid skills in creation of all source art needed for VFX (textures, geometry, flipbooks, normal maps, vector field textures, etc.).
• Strong experience with Unreal Engine E5 tools for VFX creation (of any other similar engine tools).
• Solid experience in creating complex pixel and vertex shaders.
• Strong experience with scripting (visual or otherwise) and mathematics within the context of VFX.
• Adaptive.
• Ability to adapt, and develop specific art style, techniques and workflows with minimum guidance.
• Strong mentoring, coaching and leadership skills.
• Ability to collaborate with department leads, and different departments to solve artistic and technical challenges.

Nice to have

• HLSL shader creation experience.
• Houdini.
• JangaFX EmberGen

Additional Information

What we offer in Canada:

• Benefit package 100% paid by PCF. The insurance company reimburses 100% of claims (Up to $1000 per service a year, as well as individual family coverage).
• Full Dental coverage, including major dental.
• 4% RRSP matching before tax deductions, 100% vested on day 1.
• Paid week off during Winter Holidays.
• 20 paid vacation days and 5 paid sick days.
• Free virtual health and mental well-being sessions are included in the plan for members and their dependents.
• Personal development opportunities and ability to work in a global environment.
• Work in a creative team with people full of passion for what they do.