Sr. Lighting Artist (3-month Contract)

We are seeking a skilled **Lighting Artist** to join our team, with a focus on creating efficient, real-time lighting setups in Unity to enhance the visual impact of our game environments. This role is dedicated to crafting immersive and visually captivating scenes through lighting while maintaining a focus on performance. The ideal candidate is a lighting specialist who understands how to achieve beautiful, optimized lighting in Unity, balancing aesthetics with runtime efficiency.

Description:

As a Lighting Artist, you will be responsible for implementing and refining lighting setups within Unity to enhance mood, depth, and ambiance in game environments. Your primary focus will be on real-time lighting, where you’ll work alongside level designers, artists, and engineers to ensure scenes are visually cohesive and performant. We are looking for a candidate with a deep passion for lighting who knows how to create atmospheric effects and bring game worlds to life.

A Day in the Life of a Lighting Artist:

Your day begins with reviewing and adjusting lighting setups based on recent builds, ensuring each scene achieves the intended visual style without sacrificing performance. Mid-morning, you collaborate with level designers to refine lighting across levels, enhancing the ambiance and supporting gameplay objectives. Throughout the afternoon, you focus on refining real-time lighting setups, troubleshooting performance issues, and applying post-processing techniques for added depth and clarity. By day’s end, you share updates with the team and document lighting changes, ensuring consistency across environments.

Responsibilities:

- Design and implement efficient, real-time lighting solutions in Unity to elevate visual quality while preserving performance.
- Collaborate with level designers and artists to achieve the desired look and feel for each environment.
- Adjust and fine-tune lighting setups to ensure optimal performance across various hardware configurations.
- Troubleshoot and address lighting-related issues, including balancing quality with efficiency.
- Stay current with advancements in Unity’s lighting and rendering capabilities, applying best practices to workflows.
- Support the team in maintaining a consistent visual style by implementing lighting strategies that enhance storytelling and player immersion.

Requirements:

- Proven experience as a Lighting Artist in game development, with strong proficiency in Unity’s real-time lighting tools.
- Skilled in creating visually compelling lighting that aligns with performance targets.
- Strong understanding of color theory, composition, and visual storytelling through lighting.
- Familiarity with performance profiling tools in Unity to troubleshoot and optimize lighting setups.
- Ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams, including designers, artists, and engineers.
- A portfolio showcasing impactful lighting work in real-time environments.

Pluses:

- Understanding of post-processing techniques to enhance visual fidelity.
- Experience working in a dynamic production environment with tight timelines.
- Knowledge of physically-based rendering (PBR) principles as they relate to lighting.
- Interest in exploring creative lighting solutions for a range of game styles and genres.