VFX Artist - GameSim - Talent Pipeline

Keywords Studios•Austin, TX

1d•$70,000 - $75,000•Hybrid

About The Position

GameSim is seeking a VFX Artist with strong real-time effects skills and technical judgment, with potential for growth into lead responsibilities. This role is for someone who enjoys creating high-quality visual effects and helping teams stay organized and efficient. The artist will contribute to hands-on VFX production, in-engine implementation, feedback, task breakdowns, optimization, workflow documentation, and cross-discipline collaboration. The ideal candidate is adaptable, has strong fundamentals, a practical production mindset, and can translate creative direction into executable effects work. This is a hands-on production role with opportunities to support teams, guide VFX quality, mentor artists, and grow towards lead responsibilities. Flexible work options are available, including remote, hybrid, or in-office arrangements.

Requirements

5+ years of professional game industry experience as a real-time VFX Artist or similar role.
At least one shipped game title.
Proven end-to-end real-time VFX workflow experience, from concept and asset creation through in-engine implementation and polish.
Strong experience implementing effects in Unreal Engine 4 or 5, with strong working knowledge of Niagara.
Strong particle animation fundamentals, including timing, rhythm, shape language, motion, impact, anticipation, dissipation, and readability.
Strong understanding of natural energies and materials such as fire, smoke, water, electricity, magic, dust, debris, explosions, atmospherics, and environmental effects.
Strong material and texture creation skills using tools such as Photoshop, Substance Designer, or similar software.
Ability to create clean, readable, and well-constructed material graphs and VFX systems.
Demonstrated understanding of real-time VFX optimization, including particle counts, overdraw, memory usage, material cost, scalability, and performance constraints.
Ability to balance visual impact, gameplay clarity, technical cost, and production schedule.
Strong communication skills, including clear written updates, verbal communication, documentation, and actionable feedback.
Ability to interpret vague creative, design, or client direction and turn it into clear VFX tasks or implementation plans.
Experience mentoring, reviewing, or guiding other artists. A formal Lead title is not required, but leadership behaviors are important.
Comfortable collaborating across disciplines and working with design, engineering, technical art, production, and art direction.
Strong ownership, follow-through, organization, and problem-solving ability.
Interest in growing into broader leadership responsibilities over time.

Nice To Haves

Proficiency with common production tools such as Perforce, Jira, Miro, and Confluence.
Houdini experience.
EmberGen experience.
Unity experience.
Substance Designer experience.
Experience with proprietary engines or custom VFX tools.
Scripting or coding skills, such as C#, Python, Blueprint, or similar.
2D animation or traditional animation experience.
3D animation, simulation, or procedural content creation experience.
Experience creating both stylized and realistic effects.
Experience with foliage, atmospherics, environmental effects, weather, destruction, or ambient world VFX.
Experience working with outsourcing, co-development teams, partner studios, or external vendors.
Experience collaborating with teams across different countries, cultures, and time zones.
Experience establishing VFX standards, templates, naming conventions, libraries, scalability rules, or pipeline documentation.
Experience supporting client reviews, milestone deliveries, or cross-studio feedback loops.
Experience leading a small pod, strike team, feature group, or informal group of artists.

Responsibilities

Create custom real-time visual effects and implement them in-engine using Unreal Engine 5, Unity, or proprietary tools.
Build high-quality effects for gameplay, environments, cinematics, atmosphere, combat, interaction, destruction, UI/game feedback, and other project needs.
Create all necessary textures, flipbooks, materials, meshes, simulations, and supporting assets for real-time VFX.
Maintain clean, readable, well-structured material graphs, Niagara systems, parameters, naming conventions, and reusable effect setups.
Use tools such as Photoshop, Substance Designer, Blender, Houdini, Maya, EmberGen, or other software as needed to support effect creation.
Work with complex material setups, Blueprints, scripting hooks, animation events, gameplay triggers, or engine-specific implementation needs.
Troubleshoot VFX issues in partnership with Technical Art, Engineering, Design, Animation, Audio, and other disciplines.
Own VFX optimization fundamentals, including particle counts, overdraw, shader cost, texture memory, spawn rates, scalability settings, and platform performance constraints.
Help ensure effects are readable, performant, and aligned with gameplay needs, art direction, timing, mood, and player feedback.
Review work from internal artists, partner studios, or external vendors and provide clear, constructive, actionable feedback.
Help maintain a consistent quality bar across a set of effects, a feature, a level, or a small team pod.
Support short-term planning by helping break down VFX requests into clear tasks, priorities, dependencies, risks, and definitions of done.
Proactively identify production risks, including missing gameplay hooks, performance spikes, unclear direction, pipeline gaps, dependency issues, or inconsistent style execution.
Collaborate closely with Designers, Concept Artists, Art Directors, Technical Artists, Engineers, Animators, Audio Designers, and Producers.
Support client-facing communication when needed by clarifying requirements, sharing WIP, explaining constraints, and aligning on expected outcomes.
Contribute to VFX workflow improvements, reusable templates, documentation, libraries, naming standards, or scalability rules when appropriate.