TL;DR Realities.io is looking for a mid to senior level 3D generalist to help us craft even more beautiful 3D puzzles for Puzzling Places! If you enjoy environmental storytelling in 3D and have the technical skills to make it happen, read on!

What will you be working on? Your main focus will be creating content for our relaxing 3D jigsaw puzzle game Puzzling Places - a game where players put together puzzles made of 3D scans of real world places. Launched in September 2021 across various VR platforms (Meta Quest, PSVR2, etc), Puzzling Places has grown into a beloved live service game with new puzzles being added every month. We are about to embark on the game's next big step, a step that will include crafting even more beautiful & detailed content - and that’s where you come in!

Who are we looking for?  We are looking for a Berlin or Brandenburg based team member (sorry, government funding requirement) with an excellent understanding of 3D software (ideally Blender) and 3D workflows, modeling and texturing, passion & experience in environmental storytelling and skills in small animations. The main tools you will be using are our custom photogrammetry optimization pipeline, Blender, Photoshop, and Unreal Engine.

You are excited to work as part of a motivated small indie team on a shared vision, contribute your perspective but also be ready to own your tasks & work independently. You have the curiosity to artistically explore a unique niche, the design skills to formulate a creative vision and the technical skills to make them a reality.

How does the contract look?  We offer a permanent, full time position with a 3 month trial period with either 32 or 40 hours per week.  

The tasks: 

• Monthly Puzzle Content Production: 
  • curating interesting DLC puzzle packs with existing photogrammetry scans 
  • mesh & texture clean up of photogrammetry assets using Blender and Photoshop
  • processing models into puzzles using our in house pipeline
  • Importing & setting up assets in Unreal Engine
  • QAing processed puzzles and playtesting
  • Creating marketing assets (cover art, screenshots, thumbnails, video clips)
• Working on premium puzzle packs
  • Develop themes, art direction and the visual style for puzzles
  • Relight, Kitbash and color correct photogrammetry scans
  • Curating DLC puzzle packs
  • Tell stories by creating little diorama scenes in our puzzles
  • Rig and set up small animated characters for puzzles
• Creating assets for the general game environment
• Make the game cute & cozy

What can you learn? 

• Working on a live service game with regular release cycles and player feedback
• Working with photogrammetry & 3D scanning based assets
• Working with highly developed, automated asset pipeline

Skill Requirements:

• Artistic
  • Strong Understanding of Environment Lighting: Skilled at creating atmosphere, emotion, and narrative through effective use of lighting in both indoor and outdoor settings. Experienced with different types of light and components such as intensity, color temperature, and direction to enhance the visual impact of a scene. Adept at using shader nodes to take a creative vision from an idea to reality.
  • Great Understanding of Color Theory: Proficient in applying color harmony principles to create visually appealing scenes, with a strong focus on the emotional and psychological effects of color.
  • Ability to develop a visual theme and style for an environment / scene
• Technical
  • Proficiency in Blender & Photoshop
  • Solid modeling skills and well rounded understanding of 3D
  • 3+ years of experience working with 3D models & software with a solid technical understanding of concepts like UV layouts, Different texture maps, Texel Density
  • Advanced Texture Baking Workflows: In-depth knowledge of texture baking, including techniques for baking masks, lightmaps, and normal maps, with expertise in Blender workflows.
  • Proficient in Shaders and Materials: Strong technical understanding of creating shaders and materials in Blender, with the ability to build shader graphs using components such as vertex colors, texture masks, and curves.
  • Basic understanding of rigging & animation systems
• Organizational
  • Ability to run the full production cycle of Puzzle Pack DLCs (curation, production, coordination with other team members, QA, handoff)
  • Highly organized, ability to keep track of multiple tasks within a production environment
  • Excellent communication skills

Earn bonus points with experience in one or more of the following:

• Workflow automation (especially Blender/Python scripting)
• Experience with shaders & procedural material nodes in Unreal
• Advanced tech art experience for creating additional effects & animations
• Photogrammetry processing with RealityCapture / MetaShape
• 3D modeling / sculpting / texturing 

How to best apply: your application will be read by us, your future colleagues, not AI - so please no copy & paste buzzword bingo. Rather send us an email and tell us in a few sentences why you are interested to work with us on Puzzling Places & what of your past experience fits especially well and round it off with a short CV and a portfolio showcasing a selection of your work!

We value diversity in our team and would like to explicitly encourage people from all walks of life to apply!