Electronic Arts

3D Artist

Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts creates next-level entertainment experiences that inspire players and fans around the world. Here, everyone is part of the story. Part of a community that connects across the globe. A place where creativity thrives, new perspectives are invited, and ideas matter. A team where everyone makes play happen.

The Role

Are you a deeply curious 3D tinkerer with outstanding character animation skills? Do you geek out about workflow and organization? Is your love of art bolstered by a cursory knowledge of coding tools to better enable your creation process? Is your curation of tools, keyboard shortcuts, templates, etc, an achievement unto itself? If you said “yes” to all of these, we are searching for such a unicorn to join us on EA’s Creative team working on The Sims! 

Iconic characters and expressive animation are at the heart of The Sims. As a 3D Artist on EA's Creative team, you will bring Sims characters to life through high-quality static renders and animations spanning Key Art, marketing communications, and social. While delivering outstanding art is of primary focus, you will also be working closely with the Art Lead to build an efficient, artist-friendly pipeline and iterate on our tools and processes. Our aim is to move quickly, the faster we can get from concept to polished render without sacrificing quality, the better – this is where your tinkerer/tools mindset comes out to play!

What We’re Looking For

Our ideal candidate has an outstanding character animation portfolio. You don’t just pose a rig, you understand the motivation behind your characters, even the incidental background characters in a crowd scene. You understand weight and anatomy, the physical forces and sensations that ground a character in a world. You create believable characters that hint at an expansive inner and outer life at a glance. The Sims is defined by iconic animation, you will be responsible for maintaining this quality bar.

You know characters. You will be creating characters with the game for an evolving variety of marketing communications, including Key Art, and at times contributing to in-game art and NPC creation.

Reporting Structure 
This role will report to the hiring manager and collaborate closely with Associate Creative Directors, Creative Directors, and Designers across The Sims Creative team

Work Model:

This is a hybrid position, candidates should be able to work in-office at Redwood City 3 days a week

Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with the ACDs, Designers and Creative Directors to create compelling, expressive character art that tells a story at a glance and embodies the Sims style

• Design iconic characters and build sets using the game

• Create static renders for marketing communications and internal projects using game art assets and propriety tools

• Render animation and static images in Maya/Arnold, Marmoset Toolbag, and proprietary Game Engine

• Build/iterate on tools and pipeline to reduce workflow drag and free up time for creating

• Finish hi-res renders with traditional painting and photo-editing techniques in Photoshop

• Take work from brief/direction through final artwork from start to finish: sourcing assets, creating Sims, rough posing, iterating based on feedback, lighting and rendering, and final polish in 2d.

• Collaborate with a diverse and multidisciplinary team

• Work within strict technical limitations and tight deadlines

Qualifications:

• 5+ years of animation/3D art experience in games or film

• Excellent organization skills, we are building a pipeline that will be used by multiple artists, scalability and ease of onboarding are essential

• Proactive communicator, contributing to team discussions, flagging problems as they arise, talking through your ideas, etc.

• Problem-solver, you look for creative solutions and clever shortcuts, troubleshoot problems, research, iterate, you seek always to improve.

• Know and love Maya, or at least know it like you love it. This is a must!

• Experience lighting and rendering in Arnold, using PBR materials

• Outstanding character animation skills. Your poses tell stories, convey motion, ooze personality. Must have a portfolio demonstrating strong character work to be considered.

• Multi-disciplinary 3D craftsperson: you feel reasonably comfortable in just about every area of 3D art production. You can upres a low-res game texture, model a simple prop, light a scene, tweak/troubleshoot game rigs, animate, etc. We need someone who can handle a variety of tasks. You don’t need to be an expert, you won’t be building rigs from scratch or even maintaining them, but you have enough knowledge to troubleshoot small problems on your own.

• Proficiency in Photoshop (After Effects skills are a plus!)

• Takes initiative and refines processes

• Passion for 3D Art and Games!