Environment Artist

About the Company

New York technology company building a live broadcast studio. Sets are run in real-time in Unreal Engine 5.8 on RTX 5090 workstations, featuring keyed-in presenters, 1080p60 output in 16:9 and 9:16 vertical cuts. The company handles the broadcast pipeline and requires an expert to ensure the studio environment appears physically real.

The Work

The role involves designing and building hero interiors that appear physical, expensive, and lived in, such as near-future control rooms, intelligence-operations floors, and dark editorial desks. The artist owns the set like a production designer, responsible for layout, materials, props, light, atmosphere, and environmental storytelling.

Key Responsibilities

• Concept and blockout based on briefs and references, including sightlines for three fixed cameras, anchor desk, depth layers, and practicals.
• Model and dress to AAA hero-asset standard using Nanite geometry, Substrate materials with measured real-world response, and a mix of Megascans/Fab and bespoke assets.
• Lighting: Utilize MegaLights for dense practicals, Lumen global illumination/reflections, hardware ray tracing, Virtual Shadow Maps, and volumetrics with Fog Screen Space Scattering.
• Develop three lighting and material states per set (standard, cinematic dark, breaking-red) on shared geometry, switchable live.
• Create ambience through subtle motion (screens, fans, dust, light flicker, distant activity) and MetaHuman background staff.
• Maintain performance discipline to a locked 60 fps with headroom, including tuning Lumen/MegaLights budgets, Nanite/VSM tuning, and DLSS 5 (Structure/Tone intensity, semantic masking) alongside Super Resolution and Ray Reconstruction.
• Clean project hand-off including organization and documentation of states and cameras for the broadcast team.

Qualifications

Must Have

• Shipped environment or set work on AAA titles, or equivalent film/episodic virtual art department work where the artist owned the look of interiors.
• Deep, current experience with Unreal Engine 5.8: Lumen, MegaLights, Nanite, Substrate, Virtual Shadow Maps, hardware ray tracing, PCG for dressing, and Movie Render Graph.
• Portfolio of hyper-real interiors under controlled light demonstrating design and lighting, not just modeling.
• Production designer's eye: composition, color, material storytelling, and restraint.
• Real-time performance judgment: ability to optimize for what a fixed camera sees.

Nice to Have

• MetaHuman Creator and MetaHuman Collections experience for background crowds.
• Substrate authoring from measured materials (X-Rite AXF).
• Experience with Quixel/Fab pipeline, Marvelous Designer, or Houdini for set dressing.
• Motion graphics skills for in-set screens.
• US or Europe time zone with working overlap to New York.

Note: Virtual production, broadcast, or Aximmetry experience is not required.

Engagement and Rate

• Remote.
• Structure: Hourly or fixed bid.
• Rate: Up to $150 per hour for the right artist, or a fixed bid per set.
• Status: Start immediately with potential for ongoing work (additional sets, seasonal variants, event builds).

Application Requirements

Submit the following:

• CV or credit list.
• Two or three links to hyper-real interiors designed and lit in Unreal (real-time capture preferred over stills).
• Unreal Engine version used for the provided projects.
• Rate, availability, and time zone.
  Applications without a lit real-time interior will not be reviewed.