Senior 3D Modeler and Asset Prep Artist

NVIDIA•Santa Clara, CA

About The Position

As a Model Prep Artist at NVIDIA, you will be responsible for transforming highly complex engineering CAD data into clean, efficient, and production-ready 3D assets. These assets are used across NVIDIA’s visualization, simulation, and real-time pipelines. Your daily tasks will involve preparing large-scale product assemblies to ensure optimal performance in rendering, layout, animation, and USD-based workflows. This includes ingesting CAD data directly from engineering, interpreting part revisions, and rebuilding assemblies into animation- and render-friendly hierarchies. You will also tessellate geometry for optimal visual quality and performance, repair problem geometry, and ensure assets meet technical and pipeline standards. Additionally, you will assign and remap materials using placeholder shaders or material scopes to maintain accurate visual intent while keeping assets flexible for downstream teams. A significant aspect of this role is building well-structured USD assets utilizing references, instancing, and variants to ensure large product assemblies are scalable, performant, and easily updatable. You will also apply consistent naming conventions, metadata, and documentation to make assets readable and usable across various teams.

Requirements

10+ years of demonstrated experience in 3D modeling, asset preparation, or technical art within VFX, games, automotive, or product visualization pipelines.
Deep expertise in Autodesk Maya, including the ability to develop tools and workflows using Python and MEL to automate repetitive or large-scale asset prep tasks.
Strong experience working with engineering CAD data and tessellation workflows, including formats such as STEP and IGES, and tools like Creo, SolidWorks, or Fusion 360.
Proven proficiency with USD-based pipelines and tools, including Pixar USD, Maya USD, and NVIDIA Omniverse.
Solid understanding of 3D asset optimization techniques, such as polycount reduction, decimation, instancing, and performance-driven hierarchy design.
Experience assigning, managing, and troubleshooting materials in complex, multi-part assemblies, including face-level and part-level material assignments.
Familiarity with modern material and shading conventions, including PBR workflows and technologies such as MDL and MaterialX.
BS/MS in Computer Science, Art, or a related field, or equivalent experience.

Responsibilities

Turn highly complex engineering CAD data into clean, efficient, and production-ready 3D assets used across NVIDIA’s visualization, simulation, and real-time pipelines.
Prepare large-scale product assemblies so they perform optimally in rendering, layout, animation, and USD-based workflows.
Ingest CAD data directly from engineering, interpret part revisions, and rebuild those assemblies into animation- and render-friendly hierarchies.
Tessellate geometry for optimal visual quality and performance.
Repair problem geometry.
Ensure assets meet technical and pipeline standards.
Assign and remap materials using placeholder shaders or material scopes to preserve accurate visual intent while keeping assets flexible for downstream teams.
Build well-structured USD assets using references, instancing, and variants so that large product assemblies remain scalable, performant, and easy to update.
Apply consistent naming conventions, metadata, and documentation to ensure assets are readable and usable across teams.