As a Senior Environment Surfacing Artist at Skydance Animation Madrid, you will collaborate with the Production team, Production Designer, Art Director, and Environment Supervisor to define the visual style of environments and props. This role involves creating materials, textures, and surface aesthetics, ranging from stylized to realistic, utilizing modern workflows with tools like USD, Substance Painter/Designer, Houdini, RenderMan, and RizomUV. You will be responsible for developing procedural materials, painting stylized textures, and ensuring the desired look of the film is achieved while troubleshooting technical issues and supporting other teams.

Must Have

• Create textures and surface aesthetics for environments and props.
• Develop procedural materials, filters, and generators in Substance Designer.
• Paint stylized textures from concepts.
• Produce stylized and photorealistic textures.
• Understand and translate Production Designer's vision.
• Possess deep knowledge of creating UVs and texture layout.
• Troubleshoot technical issues and provide shading support.
• 5+ years in VFX or animation industries.
• 3+ years in the animation industry.
• Strong artistic and technical aptitude in 3D animation.
• Knowledge of skinning, rigging, lighting, and optimization.
• Experience with Mari, Maya, Substance Designer, Arnold Render.

Good to Have

• High English level desirable.
• Spanish desirable.

Senior Environment Surfacing Artist

Skydance offers a dynamic, inclusive, and ever-evolving culture where innovative ideas are welcomed, and growth fostered. The partnership between unique creativity and technological advancements are demonstrated within each pillar of the company. At the heart of it all is a commitment to boldly entertaining and relevant storytelling.

While all Animation studios look to hire people who are creative and hard-working, Skydance Animation is specifically looking for pioneers who seek to push the limits of what the world’s most collaborative art form can achieve, and to give those pioneers the space and the resources to build a new studio that’s doing something different.

For information on Skydance’s privacy practices, see the Skydance EU/UK Personnel Privacy Notice located at https://skydance.com/privacy-personnel/.

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As a Senior Environment Surfacing Artist, you will work with the Production team, Production Designer, Art Director and Environment Supervisor to create the desired look for the environments and props that may reflect any of a wide variety of styles. You will contribute to the creation of materials, textures, and surface aesthetics (both stylized and realistic) using modern workflows based on USD, Substance Painter/Designer, Houdini, RenderMan, and RizomUV.

Responsibilities

• Creates textures using photography, pre‑existing materials, and/or procedural sources.
• Paints stylized textures from concepts following the look of the show.
• Develops procedural materials, filters, and generators in Substance Designer for use in Painter or the broader pipeline.
• Has the ability to create, adapt, and iterate, within a variety of artistic styles.
• Has the ability to properly research and work independently in absence of concept art.
• Precisely and accurately follows reference and direction to create the desired look of a surface.
• Produces both stylized painted textures and high‑end photorealistic textures.
• Understands and translates the vision of the Production Designer into the look of the movie.
• Keeps up on current artistic methodologies and on technology trends and tools that best suit the production and the company in the development of a stronger creative and technical environment.
• Clearly understands UVs and texture layout.
• Has the ability to troubleshoot tech issues and follow up on his/her tickets.
• Provides shading support to the Lighting and FX teams throughout production.
• Shows a proactive approach to learning new skills and tools.
• Works together with the team providing them with support, guidance and instruction in areas that contribute towards their artistic and professional growth.
• Follows the Supervisor’s and Lead's guidance.
• Acts as the link between input and output departments (Modeling, Set Dressing, Rigging, Lighting, FX, Compositing).
• Proposes solutions to technical problems, defining the best ways to proceed.
• Has organizational skills as time management and prioritization, within several tasks.
• Has proactive communication with Clarity and Transparency.

Requirements

• 5+ years in VFX or animation industries.
• 3+ years in the animation industry.
• Shows strong artistic or/and technical aptitude related to 3D animation is a must.
• Possesses deep knowledge of creating UVs.
• Knowledge of skinning, rigging, lighting and optimization.
• Strong artistic or/and technical aptitude related to 3D animation.
• Experience in Mari, Maya, Substance Designer, Arnold Render.
• High English level desirable.
• Spanish desirable.

#Animation #LI-Hybrid

Skydance is a diversified media company founded by David Ellison in 2010 to create high quality, event-level entertainment for global audiences. The Company brings to life stories of immersive worlds across its feature film, television, interactive, and animation divisions.

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