Senior Environment Artist

Job Title: Senior Environment Artist Team: Art & Animation Reporting into: Head of Art & Animation Hybrid working status: Fully remote available/Hybrid Studio Overview  We are Sports Interactive   The gaming studio behind: ⚽ Football Manager.  Founded in 1994, Sports Interactive became a wholly owned subsidiary of SEGA Europe in 2006. Based at the Here East technology hub in Stratford, East London, the SI team continues to expand as we bring our titles to an ever-growing audience across an increasing variety of platforms.  To support our growth, we welcome the opportunity to connect with passionate people with the drive to match our ambitions and initiative to realise your individual potential.  Position OverviewWe are seeking an accomplished and experienced Senior Environment Artist to join our art team. The ideal candidate will bring both artistic vision and technical expertise to the creation of high-quality, visually compelling environments that enhance gameplay and narrative. This role demands close collaboration across disciplines, a thorough understanding of environment art workflows, and a dedication to crafting immersive, believable worlds. Key Responsibilities

Environment Creation:

• Create highly detailed, game-ready 3D environments that align with the artistic vision of the project, ensuring visual consistency and a cohesive world.
• Build immersive and engaging locations, from natural landscapes to complex architectural spaces, using a mix of modelling, texturing, and material creation.
• Optimise assets and environments for performance without sacrificing quality, ensuring environments run efficiently in real-time game engines.
• Collaborate with the tech art and engineering teams to resolve any performance issues related to the environment art.

Texturing and Materials:

• Create and apply textures, shaders, and materials that bring environments to life, ensuring that all assets are of a high-quality standard and integrate seamlessly into the game engine.
• Work with procedural texturing techniques to add detail and depth to environments.

Collaboration and Communication:

• Collaborate closely with designers and technical artists to ensure that the environments support both gameplay and the creative vision of the game.
• Actively communicate with other team members to gather feedback and iterate on environments based on direction from leads and the art director.
• Identify and solve creative and technical challenges to deliver the best possible environments. This includes addressing technical constraints, lighting issues, and world-building complexities.

Pipeline and Workflow: 

• Follow and refine the environment art pipeline, using the latest tools and workflows to maximise efficiency and output quality.
• Contribute to the development of tools, techniques, and workflows that streamline environment creation and integration.
• Work with modular systems to create flexible environment pieces that can be reused throughout the game, ensuring both efficiency and visual consistency.

Visual Quality and Polish:

• Contribute to the creation of atmosphere, mood, and storytelling through environment art, ensuring that every location is visually engaging and enhances the player experience.
• Add final polish to environments, ensuring they meet the highest quality standards

Knowledge, Skills, and Experience

• 3+ years of experience as an environment artist in the video game industry, with at least 2 shipped titles, preferably in AAA games.
• Strong portfolio showcasing expertise in creating high-quality environments, including natural landscapes, architectural spaces, and lighting setups Proficiency in industry-standard 3D modelling software such as Maya, 3ds Max, or Blender.
• Extensive experience with ZBrush for sculpting, and Substance Painter and Designer for texturing and material creation.
• Strong understanding of real-time rendering, PBR (Physically Based Rendering), and optimisation techniques for game engines, particularly Unreal Engine or Unity.
• In-depth knowledge of composition, lighting, form, and colour theory, with a passion for crafting believable game environments.
• Strong attention to detail, with the ability to create environments that evoke emotion and tell stories through art.
• Ability to solve technical and artistic challenges, ensuring that environments maintain visual fidelity while running smoothly in the game engine.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to give and receive feedback constructively.
• Strong team player with a collaborative mindset and the ability to work across disciplines.

Benefits of Working at Sports Interactive: A flexible working policy to best suit you and your team.  Subsidised mental health, therapy and coaching sessions are available. Contributory Pension Scheme (up to 7% of annual salary).  Free onsite evening bar in the Sports Interactive London HQ.  A well-stocked breakfast bar with cereals, fruits, teas, and coffees.  Regular events in collaboration with our partnered football clubs. ️ Access to our on-site physical and massage therapist services.  Multiple clubs and societies to join e.g., book club and art workshops.  Free access to games released under the SEGA Europe umbrella. ️ A range of Gym Membership options through our Benefits partners. ️ Fully Subsidised Healthcare and Dental Plans.  Free Travel Insurance for yourself and your family. ✈️ A personalised football shirt upon passing probation.  What is it like to work here?  We approach everything with passion, whether that is making our mark on the gaming and football industries or doing our bit for the world around us. We want to share that outlook with everyone who shows up to work here each day. For us, talent wins games, but teamwork wins titles. Collaboration is the key to constantly topping our best. We believe everyone matters, no matter which part of the business you are in, so we encourage and support our people in driving your own growth and realising your full potential. But, more than anything else, we are a team. A team with a down-to-earth dynamic, that has a lot of fun doing what we do. And whether that’s technical tweaks or fine-tuning our creative process, everything is geared at producing the best game possible for our players. To do that, we need to be tenacious and move quickly, and not be afraid of switching things up. It is these principles that have enabled us to produce a game that has defined year after year, and that will continue to push us for many more to come.Our flexible working culture gives you the opportunity to optimise your workload, with in-office, hybrid, and remote working options dependent on role. So, if you want a work/life balance, we are behind you. Because while we live to create extraordinary games, we know that is not all you have got going on. You can trust that we always keep things in perspective, fostering an environment where work can be more than just a job.We’re also a London Living Wage employer, boast one of the lowest staff turnover rates in the industry and are proud to have won the ‘Best Places to Work’ award by Gamesindustry.biz in large company category in 2023.We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from any relevant candidate irrespective of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, religion, or belief.  SI is proudly a Disability Confident Committed employer, and we are dedicated to ensuring our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible. Our studio has disabled access and facilities but please ensure you advise us if you require any other reasonable adjustments to be made to support you during the recruitment process. Our Values: Keep collaborating: Teamwork wins titles - Here, ideas belong to everyone, whatever department you’re part of. Collaboration lets us score more as a team than we could individually. Be flexible: We think fast and adapt faster. The football and entertainment worlds never stand still, so we keep progressing and switching things up to stay ahead. Stay Tenacious: We don’t overlook the details. Everything we do is about producing the best game possible, in other words, never settle. Show Ambition: Let your drive lead the way - Your individual outlook can give everyone the edge. Make the studio’s purpose personal and let your drive lead the way. Bring the Passion: Have fun doing your thing - Don’t be fooled, what we do is not a game. Making our players’ passion come to life is our passion. Consider the Bigger Picture: Keep things in perspective - We want our impact to be a positive one. From built-in work/life balance to initiatives covering the most important topics of today, we have what matters in focus.