Senior Lighting Artist

Cliffhanger Games is a newly formed Seattle Studio focusing on blockbuster action-adventure games and pioneering next-generation emergent storytelling beginning with Marvel's Black Panther. Join us to pursue your passion to build unique groundbreaking, and inclusive games that empower players to create incredible stories of heroic adventure. Become a foundational part of an ambitious, respectful, and diverse team as we are looking for a Senior Lighting Artist to join our team.

Reporting to the Senior Lighting Director, you will help craft lighting schemes for our worlds, enhancing mood, directing focus, and adding realism with a bit of fantastical elements to our game environments. You have a strong artistic vision, an understanding of lighting principles, and the technical proficiency to bring our game worlds to life. As a Senior Lighting Artist, you will work with the Principal Art Director, Senior Lighting Director, Environment Artists, Presentation Artists, Technical Artists, Designers, and Graphic/Gameplay Engineers to create visually stunning and immersive lighting that enhances the player experience.

Responsibilities

1. Develop and implement high-quality lighting solutions that align with the artistic direction of the game.
2. Collaborate with the Principal Art Director, Senior Lighting Director, and other team members to establish the mood, atmosphere, and visual storytelling through lighting.
3. Create and optimize lighting setups for environments, characters, and objects within the game engine.
4. Use advanced lighting techniques, including dynamic and baked lighting, to achieve realistic and stylized effects.
5. Create skies and atmosphere procedurally within a game engine combined with external tools or through HDRI/skybox backdrops.
6. Troubleshoot and resolve lighting-related technical issues, ensuring optimal performance across different platforms.
7. Mentor and provide guidance to junior lighting artists, helping to elevate the overall quality of the team's work.
8. Stay up to date with industry trends and advancements in lighting technology, improving your skills.
9. Participate in regular reviews and provide constructive feedback to peers, encouraging a collaborative and creative work environment.
10. Collaborate with art, technical art, and engineering team members to ensure our lighting pipeline and setups are efficient and performant.
11. Document and promote lighting pipelines to ensure team clarity on best practices.
12. Partner with the Senior Lighting Director, Development Directors, and art leadership on maintaining scope and priorities through the phases of development.

Qualifications

1. 6+ years' experience as a lighting artist in the video game industry.
2. Knowledge of industry-standard software and tools, such as Unreal Engine, Unity, Maya, 3ds Max, or similar.

We encourage you to apply, even if you don't match every qualification listed above. Let us know why this role appeals to you, why you will be great, what unique perspectives you will bring, and which requirements will challenge you to grow.