Specializations within Art:
Concept Artist - Creates a digital painting of the initial idea. Establish the look and feel of the world and characters to shape the overall concept of the game.
Environment Artist - Model and build environments and props from start to finish, including texturing, materials and lighting.
Character Artist - Model and build characters through to completion, includingtexturing, materials and lighting.
VFX Artist - Focus on particle systems and effects such as fire or water. Anything from weather effects, explosions, smoke or cloth.
Technical Animator (Rigging) - Build the skeleton of a character or prop and create procedural objects, for example, a cloth that moves realistically using simulated physics.
Animator - Manipulate the skeleton of an object to move within the scene.
Tech Artist - Act as a bridge between artists and programmers by utilizing Blueprints to create materials and tools.
Concepts that are important for this career path:
Photoshop - Digital painting and concept art
Maya - 3D modeling and animation
ZBrush - Digital sculpting, texturing and painting
3DS Max - Game assets and modular environments
Substance Painter - Texturing and procedural texturing
Blender - Entire 3D pipeline: modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking.
UE4 Blueprints - Visual scripting without using code
Houdini - Effects creation
UE4 Cascade - Modular particle effects
UE4 Niagara - Effects creation and manipulation within UE4
Building an Art Portfolio:
Anyone applying to an art or visual-based role at Epic requires a portfolio. If you do not submit a portfolio with your application you will not be considered. The ideal art portfolio is a direct link to your ArtStation page that shows us your strongest work with minimal clicks. Include only your best and complete pieces of work. Unfinished or unpolished work makes it difficult for us to effectively review your portfolio, as we will not gain a good understanding of your capabilities. With any art role at Epic it’s important we see your passion. It’s easy to see someone's passion for art when hours are spent on personal projects or creating community tutorials. These are examples of things that stand out and are more likely to get you noticed than just working on your educational projects. We also love to see where you take your inspiration from and where you get your creative ideas, so feel free to include concepts from other artists but remember to always credit them. Always include a description with the piece that details information on the software used. Did you sculpt in Zbrush, or model in Maya or Blender? Did you use Substance for texturing? What program did you use to render your final piece? We love breakdowns! When going into more detail about the piece include WIP shots of your final render (Bonus if you can also show ingame/in-engine of the model, not just the final render). Art roles at Epic are mostly specialized. Often students become generalists and learn a bit of everything. If you’re not a specialized artist, provide your career goals in your resume. For example, if you’re a generalist, do you want to get into character modeling, environment art, and hard surface? And tell us why by showcasing this work in your portfolio. Check out your competition. This is a great way to learn, grow and take inspiration from the look and feel of other successful portfolios. Head to Artstation and look at the Trending page to get an idea of what success looks like.
