Lighting Artist

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Canada.

📋 Description

• Develop high-quality real-time lighting for gameplay environments, levels, cinematics, characters, and interactive sequences.

• Convert art direction, concept art, reference materials, gameplay needs, narrative objectives, and client feedback into effective lighting solutions.

• Utilize lighting to create mood, atmosphere, visual hierarchy, environmental storytelling, and direct player attention.

• Ensure that lighting enhances gameplay readability, navigation, combat visibility, character presentation, and key interactive elements.

• Design and refine exposure, color, contrast, fog, atmosphere, reflections, shadows, emissive response, color grading, and post-processing.

• Produce lighting for a variety of visual styles, including realistic, stylized, cinematic, and highly art-directed projects.

• Maintain visual consistency across related environments, gameplay areas, sequences, times of day, and lighting conditions.

• Guide assigned scenes from initial lighting setup to final polish.

• Address feedback from Art Direction, project leadership, and clients promptly and professionally.

• Ensure that completed work meets project standards for quality, performance, organization, and delivery.

• Oversee lighting efforts for an assigned scene, group of scenes, feature, or milestone as requested by project leadership.

• Review the contributions of other lighting artists or multidisciplinary artists involved in lighting.

• Provide clear, respectful, and actionable feedback through written notes, live reviews, reference images, paintovers, or in-engine examples.

• Ensure that lighting work adheres to approved visual targets, technical standards, and project specifications.

• Communicate expected outcomes, priorities, and quality benchmarks to artists working within an assigned area.

• Monitor the visual progress of assigned lighting tasks and identify scenes that may need further revision or assistance.

• Verify that feedback has been implemented before submitting work for senior, Art Director, or client review.

• Assist junior or less-experienced artists with lighting fundamentals, engine workflows, scene organization, optimization, and production practices.

• Set an example through dependable execution, clear communication, constructive collaboration, and professional behavior.

• Escalate unresolved quality, schedule, scope, or technical issues to the appropriate senior artist, Art Director, or Producer.

⛳️ Requirements

• Professional experience in creating lighting for games, real-time projects, animation, visualization, or a closely related field.

• A portfolio or reel showcasing strong real-time lighting work.

• Solid understanding of lighting fundamentals, including value, color, contrast, composition, visual hierarchy, atmosphere, exposure, shadow, and material response.

• Experience in lighting gameplay environments or interactive real-time scenes.

• Comprehension of how lighting enhances mood, gameplay readability, navigation, environmental storytelling, and player focus.

• Professional experience with Unreal Engine or another modern real-time engine.

• Familiarity with dynamic or baked lighting, global illumination, reflections, volumetrics, exposure, color grading, and post-processing.

• Working knowledge of physically based rendering and material responses.

• Understanding of basic lighting optimization, including light costs, shadows, volumetrics, reflections, scalability, and platform constraints.

• Capacity to take ownership of assigned scenes and guide them through review and completion.

• Ability to receive, interpret, and implement artistic and technical feedback.

• Experience in reviewing artwork or providing constructive feedback to colleagues.

• Ability to identify work that falls short of established quality targets and suggest practical improvements.

• Capability to balance visual quality, technical needs, production scope, and schedule.

• Strong written, verbal, and interpersonal communication skills.

• Ability to prioritize tasks, communicate risks, and ensure work is completed.

• Experience in collaborating with various game-development disciplines.

• Flexibility to adapt to different projects, visual styles, engines, pipelines, platforms, and client expectations.

• Ability to work effectively both independently and as part of a distributed team.

🏝️ Benefits

• Opportunity to engage in diverse projects.

• Three weeks of paid leave.

• Comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, and vision coverage.

• Sick leave.

• Disability coverage.

• Corporate holidays.

• Professional development opportunities.