Senior Environment Surfacing Artist

Skydance offers a dynamic, inclusive, and ever-evolving culture where innovative ideas are welcomed, and growth fostered. The partnership between unique creativity and technological advancements are demonstrated within each pillar of the company. At the heart of it all is a commitment to boldly entertaining and relevant storytelling.

While all Animation studios look to hire people who are creative and hard-working, Skydance Animation is specifically looking for pioneers who seek to push the limits of what the world’s most collaborative art form can achieve, and to give those pioneers the space and the resources to build a new studio that’s doing something different.

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As an Environment Senior Surfacing Artist, you will collaborate with the Production team, Production Designer, Art Director, and Environment Supervisor to develop the visual language and surface aesthetics of environments and props throughout the film. You will create and refine materials, textures, and surfacing solutions across a wide range of artistic styles while maintaining the creative vision of the project. You will work within modern production workflows using tools and technologies such as USD, Substance Painter/Designer, Houdini, RenderMan, and RizomUV.

Responsibilities

• Creates and develops stylized and realistic textures using photographic references, hand-painted techniques, procedural workflows, and existing texture assets, adapting approaches to different artistic styles and production requirements.
• Researches visual references and develops surfacing solutions independently when concept art or direct visual guidance is unavailable.
• Translates the Production Designer’s vision into cohesive surfacing solutions that support the overall visual language of the film.
• Ensures surfacing quality, consistency, and adherence to the established visual direction across assets, environments, and sequences.
• Creates, refines, and maintains materials using standard and procedural shading workflows, balancing artistic requirements with appropriate physical properties and visual style.
• Troubleshoots technical issues, tracks progress, and follows through to resolution.
• Takes ownership of assigned assets, ensuring quality and timely delivery.
• Collaborates with Supervisors, Leads, and upstream/downstream departments, including Modeling, Set Dressing, Rigging, Lighting, FX, and Compositing.
• Shares knowledge and supports the growth of less experienced artists.
• Proposes solutions to artistic and technical challenges, defining the best ways to proceed.
• Demonstrates strong organizational skills, including task prioritization and effective time management across multiple assignments.
• Maintains clear, proactive, and transparent communication.

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience in the VFX or animation industry.
• 3+ years in the animation industry is desirable.
• Strong artistic sensibility and/or technical expertise related to 3D animation and VFX are required.
• Experience in Renderman and/or Arnold.
• Experience with Substance 3D Painter, Substance 3D Designer, and/or Mari.
• Strong knowledge of UV creation and layout.
• Understanding of related departments' workflows, including Modeling, Set Dressing, Lighting, FX, and Compositing.
• Experience optimizing complex scenes and rendering workflows.
• Experience managing large scenes, complex environments, and demanding sequences.
• Knowledge of Houdini, Solaris or Katana is desirable.
• USD and/or OSL knowledge is a plus.
• Knowledge of vegetation workflows (instances and scatters) is a plus.
• Understanding of displacement workflows (maps and geometry output).
• High English level desirable.

#Animation #LI-Hybrid

Skydance is a diversified media company founded by David Ellison in 2010 to create high quality, event-level entertainment for global audiences. The Company brings to life stories of immersive worlds across its feature film, television, interactive, and animation divisions.

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