Contract in Cambridge, GB Remote (any location) - Senior - Art
As a Material Artist at World Makers you will craft the high-quality, physically based materials that give our projects their distinctive, immersive look. Working in Unreal Engine 5, you’ll collaborate closely with our art and technical teams to author and optimise a library of high quality smart materials and bespoke shaders that elevate every asset in-game.
This contract is for an initial period of 3 months, with potential opportunities for extension.
Responsibilities
* Build and maintain modular material libraries and master-material setups in UE5, including layered material and vertex-blend workflows.
* Prototype and iterate smart materials and procedural texturing setups in Substance Designer / Painter to maximise reuse and efficiency.
* Work with artists to ensure material fidelity, scale and texel density are consistent across levels.
* Optimise materials and shader complexity to meet performance budgets on current-gen consoles and modern PCs, profiling and fixing issues as needed.
* Partner with lighting, VFX and tech-art to achieve cohesive surface response under all lighting conditions and gameplay scenarios.
* Document material guidelines and best practices for internal and external collaborators.
Skills & Requirements
* Shipped-title experience as a Material or Environment/Texture Artist, with a portfolio showcasing outstanding PBR material creation and surface detail work.
* Expert knowledge of Substance Designer & Painter (or equivalent), with strong node-based procedural texturing skills.
* Deep understanding of physically based rendering theory, real-world surface properties and advanced shader techniques (parallax or virtual height mapping, subsurface scattering, etc.).
* Experience setting up and profiling materials in Unreal Engine 5 (Material Editor, Material Functions, Nanite & Lumen considerations).
* Solid grasp of game-development pipelines, optimisation strategies and cross-disciplinary collaboration.
* Comfortable working core hours in the United Kingdom time zone (BST) and communicating professionally in English.
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