Contract Materials Artist (Unannounced Project)

ArenaNet

6d•$40 - $58

About The Position

ArenaNet is looking for a Materials Artist to help bring the world of an unannounced Unreal Engine 5 project to life. In this role, you’ll create high-quality environment assets that shape the visual identity, storytelling, and atmosphere of the game world. We’re looking for an artist with a strong eye for form, material definition, composition, and storytelling who thrives in a highly collaborative environment and is passionate about building immersive worlds players want to explore.

Requirements

3+ years of professional game development experience creating environment or prop art for shipped titles.
Strong portfolio demonstrating high-quality material and surface creation across a variety of styles and real world surfaces.
Excellent understanding of form, composition, materials, scale, and environmental storytelling.
Experience creating game-ready materials and assets from high-poly through optimized in-game implementation.
Strong proficiency in Substance Designer, Maya, ZBrush, Blender and Photoshop.
Experience working in Unreal Engine workflows, ideally UE5.
Understanding of physically based rendering (PBR) pipelines and modern asset creation techniques. asset optimization and best practices in content creation.
Strong collaboration and communication skills with both artistic and technical teams, with ability to both give and receive constructive criticism.
Ability to iterate quickly while maintaining a high level of polish and craftsmanship.
Passion for games, world building, and creating immersive player experiences.

Responsibilities

Create high-quality PBR materials and surface treatments that support and elevate the project’s visual direction.
Build and manage Substance Designer graphs for tileable materials, trims, and surface detail.
Create 3D props and environment assets for a wide range of locations in Unreal Engine 5.
Partner closely with Tech Art, Concept Art, Environment Art, Design, and Art Direction to translate visual targets and gameplay needs into compelling in-game assets.
Collaborate with Environment Artists to ensure materials are integrated consistently and effectively across in-game environments.
Collaborate with Technical Artists and Engineers to improve workflows, pipelines, optimization, and asset integration processes.
Contribute to the development and documentation of material workflows, standards, and libraries.
Track and address material-related bugs.
Proactively seek and apply feedback while contributing ideas that elevate the overall visual direction of the project.
Balance artistic quality with performance, readability, gameplay needs, and production constraints.
Continuously push the quality of the game through strong craftsmanship, iteration, and attention to detail.