Senior 3D Character Artist - Planet Franchise CG Jobs

Job Description

Frontier is an established, market leading independent developer and publisher of videogames for PC and consoles. Founded in 1994, we are based in the world-leading technology cluster and historic city of Cambridge, England. With a growing team of over 800 talented people, we are passionate about creating innovative genre-leading games and authentic worlds for our communities of players.

We have achieved serial successes across a wide variety of titles including Elite Dangerous, Planet Coaster, Jurassic World Evolution and Planet Zoo. We are continuing to grow our team to support our existing portfolio and an exciting and ambitious future roadmap, which includes the development of both own-IP titles and licensed-IP titles. Our IP-license partners include Universal (Jurassic World), Formula 1 and Games Workshop (Warhammer).We are also growing our team to continue the expansion of Frontier Foundry, our publishing label for games developed by carefully selected partner studios.

We have a modern spacious studio located on the Cambridge Science Park in the heart of the Cambridge tech hub. For those who wish to relocate to the Cambridge area and work either entirely in the studio or flexibly between the studio and home, we can provide generous financial and practical support to facilitate your move. We are also able to offer remote working for those who would prefer to work almost exclusively from home or who are unable to relocate. We can discuss your preferences with you during the recruitment process.

We’re looking for a talented 3D Character Artist to join our team and welcome applications from experienced candidates or Graduates, to work on the continued support and expansion of our genre leading family of Planet games.

As a company we produce a wide spectrum of subject matter from stunningly photoreal to beautifully stylised, so populating our game worlds is always challenging and interesting. As a Character Artist in our exceptional and experienced team you will be building the cast for the next generation of Frontier games.

This is a fantastic opportunity to join a studio with a proven track record of delivering successful AAA titles and to play an important role in our continued success.

Responsibilities

• Create in-game character models in the Planet franchise style Maya, ZBrush, Photoshop and Substance.
  
• Understand the character being created; their narrative, motivations and gameplay potential and weave that into your work.
  
• Collaborate with fellow Character Artists to maintain the highest quality throughout development; on budget, on time and in the style.
  

• A good team player with a willingness to work collaboratively, willingly taking on feedback and guidance from the rest of the team.
  
• Excellent attention to detail.
  
• Ability to work within an established art style.
  
• Exceptional level of high-polygon character modelling in ZBrush or Mudbox (ZBrush preferred).
  
• Extensive knowledge of 3D packages such as Maya, 3ds Max (Maya preferred).
  
• Proven ability across all aspect of character modelling, including anatomical, cloth and hard-surface modelling.
  
• Excellent Photoshop and Substance Painter texturing skills, targeting physically based rendering.
  
• Familiarity with the entire real-time character creation pipeline: high-poly sculpting, retopology, UV mapping, texture baking, texture creation, setting up and exporting to game.
  
• Awareness of the importance of mesh topology, to ensure that character models deform well when animated.
  
• Experience with PBR and real-time engines.
  
• Understanding of best working practices in terms of LOD creation and optimisation.
  
• Excellent communications skills are essential.
  

• An Art degree or relevant game art course is highly desirable.
  
• Flair for interpreting concept art, turning character sketches into 3D models that accurately capture the spirit of the concept.
  
• Adaptable attitude to working across a breadth of art styles, from high-detail realism to cartoon stylisation.
  

• A transparent, connected and collaborative culture that gives you the opportunity to thrive
  
• A suite of support for personal wellbeing, development and an array of benefits which ensure you share in the company’s success.
  
• An engaging and creative environment with friendly people working together on exciting, industry-leading games.
  
• A place where our people’s voices matter, where we are constantly looking to improve our employee experience and communication through annual goals set by people’s feedback.
  
• A safe and inclusive culture where all our people feel that they can be their authentic selves and people from diverse backgrounds work collaboratively together. From application to interview, we place inclusion at the heart of all we do.
  

About Company

Frontier’s Founder and CEO, David Braben, began his work in games back in 1982 when he co-authored the seminal game Elite. David founded Frontier in 1994 in order to build a team to continue creating high quality, innovative games in the rapidly evolving games industry. Frontier has thrived over the subsequent three decades with serial successes across a wide variety of titles including Elite Dangerous, Planet Coaster, Jurassic World Evolution and Planet Zoo and the upcoming F1 Manager 22 as well as our Warhammer: Age of Sigmar RTS project.

As an independent developer and publisher with a legacy of much-loved titles for PC and consoles over the last 27 years, we are passionate about creating authentic worlds through innovative, genre-leading games. We also publish games developed by carefully selected partner studios under our Frontier Foundry games label.

At Frontier we believe that authentic games last a lifetime and in order for us to continue making smart and creative choices for our games, we need the smartest and most creative people in our teams!