ThePlanarDanse game studio is seeking a collaborative and determined 3d Environment Artist to join our growing team! We will be making a cozy-but-meaningful narrative in a Studio Ghibli-inspired world of sky islands, and we need you to help bring it to life!

Creators that would excel in this position at TPD are those with a passion for bringing captivating, \*atmospheric\* worlds to life, providing 3D level art, modular 3d asset kits, UE material graph shaders, fog, and RVT workflows, all for use in our upcoming release on PC. You will be responsible for environment tiles & props in varied biomes. These will focus on natural spaces, such as vines, trees, grass, & crumbled ruins, but also include small villages and occasionally city assets. This will provide much freedom to create and innovate to improve the value & quality of our games, overall.

ThePlanarDanse is a game studio and IP. TPD has published two games and one book within its IP, and is now seeking to expand with greater budget and size. TPD is a worker-owned, worker-ran game studio, with its day-to-day operations self-managed with flexible hours by its developers, rather than accepting requirements laid down by shareholders that do not know the intricacies of game development or what players desire. With three years full employment, a worker will become a full owner alongside all others.

The games that TPD makes are those with intricate, serious, and/or dark themes. These can be morbid and gothic, such as in Skulltide; they can be magic-punk and steeped in fantasy realism; they can be surreal and based in human experience. If these such genres and aesthetics are your interest and specialty, and you are looking for a contract with the opportunity for longer employment, send your resume our way!

Duties

• Create modular kits, asset, and hero pieces for the creation of our 3d environments.
• Creation of procedural tools for templatable assets (rocks, cliffs, etc.) where these would save time.
• Through environment assets, tools, shaders, & effects, marry the narrative design of the game to the atmosphere of its levels and art direction to bring the player truly into the world.
• Collaborate with the wider team to complete all project milestones in a realistic timeframe without unnecessary crunch.
• Participate in brainstorming sessions to contribute creative ideas and solutions.
• Ensure all artwork meets technical specifications for integration into UE5 with acceptable performance.
• Stay updated on industry trends and techniques to continually improve skills and contribute innovative ideas.

Nice-to-haves

• Create high-quality 3D VFX inside Unreal Engine 5 to decorate these environments. (falling leaves, local fog volumes, RVT snow and grass)
• Houdini, Geometry script, PCG Grammars, or similar procedural methods of making authored content fit into every space perfectly.
• Have experience working in horizontally-managed teams and/or self-managed work environments.

Requirements

• Experience with environment art targeting Unreal Engine. Applications without shown Unreal experience will not be considered.
• Experience with 3d environment art in a semi-stylized (not fully stylized) rendering style.
• Work under previous finished game projects with commercial intent and indie success, (III-AA) or equivalent experience.
• Peak communication skills and an eye for error and usability, so as to ensure a polished game at the end of development with levels whose form follows function.
• Use of Unreal Engine in an artistic capacity with an eye for the performance budget.
• Previous experience coordinating art direction for a project, be that a game, an animation, or a similar example from portfolio, is highly desirable.
• Ability to work collaboratively in a team environment while managing multiple tasks effectively without

What We Offer

• Meaningful Game Projects: Our next project is a meaningful single-player RPG, exploration-driven with characters and narrative at heart, akin to a Ghibli take on Spiritfarer.
• Game-developer-led Creativity: TPD is committed to developer-ownership over the creative process of its games.
• Innovation-Driven Environment: Work on groundbreaking projects that push the limits of what stories are possible in games.
• Remote-First Culture: Open to candidates worldwide, with a work environment that values results over micro-management.

Note: This contract is fully remote. Atlantic timezones are preferred.

Join us in creating visually stunning experiences that engage users and expand The Planar Danse as a cooperative studio under developer management!