[UE4] Need Character + Environment Artists
Hi all,
Digital Drifters is an independent team working on a UE4 title. We're currently building into a vertical slice of our game - the game demo. We are looking for people with demonstrable skill in creating quality 3D art using "next-gen" techniques. Those techniques have been slightly altered in UE4. Not only can we offer the chance to work on a fantasy title using UE4, but we can also offer to train you on how to create amazing art for the new engine. We've been using UE4 for a while and have learned quite a bit. Our team is comprised of the following star developers:
Game Designer + Team Lead
- 10 years of professional game design experience in a leadership role
- 6 years experience with Unreal Engine, 1 year with UE4 (Unreal MVP)
- 4 shipped titles
- Pitched 3 games in the past year, 2 of which have been funded
- Presented 3 times at Game Developer's Conference
- Has contacts at several major publishers from his previous work
- Currently working at a game start-up in Southern California
Senior Gameplay Engineer
- 9 years professional programming experience with games
- 3 years experience with Unreal Engine (4 months with UE4)
- 3 shipped titles
- Worked with industry legends, which rubbed off
- Currently working at a game start-up in San Francisco
Senior Technical Cinematic Animator
- 9 years professional experience rigging, animating, and creating badass motionbuilder and maya tools for other artists
- 5 years experience with Unreal Engine (4 months with UE4)
- 5 shipped titles
- Has maintained leadership roles in 3 different AAA companies
- Currently working as a freelance contractor
Audio Engineer
- 20 years professional experience
- 5 years experience with Unreal Engine (1 year with UE4)
- 2 shipped titles
Senior Particle FX Artist
- 9 years professional experience
- 4 years experience with Unreal Engine (2 months with UE4)
- 6 shipped titles
- Founded his own company, which has since shipped 2 titles
- Is also an engineer - he codes professionally as well
In addition, we have two concept artists, three environment artists, and one character artist - all professionals with at least one shipped title.
Our project is a medieval fantasy. It's a third-person, ability based, co-op game. There's significant in-depth character progression, with a strong focus on team play (even with random players). Combat will be both skill and strategy based, and co-op bosses will be complex and require thought rather than mindless button mashing. While this has yet to be developed (we need artists!), we have done this type of game development before. Third person games like the Elder Scrolls series are not new to our team (some of us might have worked on AAA games like that in the past :poly108:)
We're looking for 1 character artist. Details below:
Character Artist:
Our character needs:
All artists will be given concept art, mood boards and as many supporting images as possible.
We have significant experience pitching games to publishers. We have learned how to land the right meetings and present our games in a way that excites them. Our goal is to finish the game demo and wrap up all marketing materials by the end of January so we have time to set up meetings for GDC.
We have a large game design document created as well as several supporting documents. We're using Perforce, which is directly integrated into the engine.
If you are interested in hearing more, PM this account directly.
Digital Drifters is an independent team working on a UE4 title. We're currently building into a vertical slice of our game - the game demo. We are looking for people with demonstrable skill in creating quality 3D art using "next-gen" techniques. Those techniques have been slightly altered in UE4. Not only can we offer the chance to work on a fantasy title using UE4, but we can also offer to train you on how to create amazing art for the new engine. We've been using UE4 for a while and have learned quite a bit. Our team is comprised of the following star developers:
Game Designer + Team Lead
- 10 years of professional game design experience in a leadership role
- 6 years experience with Unreal Engine, 1 year with UE4 (Unreal MVP)
- 4 shipped titles
- Pitched 3 games in the past year, 2 of which have been funded
- Presented 3 times at Game Developer's Conference
- Has contacts at several major publishers from his previous work
- Currently working at a game start-up in Southern California
Senior Gameplay Engineer
- 9 years professional programming experience with games
- 3 years experience with Unreal Engine (4 months with UE4)
- 3 shipped titles
- Worked with industry legends, which rubbed off
- Currently working at a game start-up in San Francisco
Senior Technical Cinematic Animator
- 9 years professional experience rigging, animating, and creating badass motionbuilder and maya tools for other artists
- 5 years experience with Unreal Engine (4 months with UE4)
- 5 shipped titles
- Has maintained leadership roles in 3 different AAA companies
- Currently working as a freelance contractor
Audio Engineer
- 20 years professional experience
- 5 years experience with Unreal Engine (1 year with UE4)
- 2 shipped titles
Senior Particle FX Artist
- 9 years professional experience
- 4 years experience with Unreal Engine (2 months with UE4)
- 6 shipped titles
- Founded his own company, which has since shipped 2 titles
- Is also an engineer - he codes professionally as well
In addition, we have two concept artists, three environment artists, and one character artist - all professionals with at least one shipped title.
Our project is a medieval fantasy. It's a third-person, ability based, co-op game. There's significant in-depth character progression, with a strong focus on team play (even with random players). Combat will be both skill and strategy based, and co-op bosses will be complex and require thought rather than mindless button mashing. While this has yet to be developed (we need artists!), we have done this type of game development before. Third person games like the Elder Scrolls series are not new to our team (some of us might have worked on AAA games like that in the past :poly108:)
We're looking for 1 character artist. Details below:
Character Artist:
Our character needs:
- Demonstrable experience with human anatomy and creating it in 3D space
- Experience creating high-poly, high-detail character sculpts in a program such as Zbrush or Mudbox, as well as the baking process
- Experience UV'ing and texturing characters with an eye for detail and color
- Experience working with the Unreal Engine Material Editor (minimum: basic experience with any version of UE, including UDK)
All artists will be given concept art, mood boards and as many supporting images as possible.
We have significant experience pitching games to publishers. We have learned how to land the right meetings and present our games in a way that excites them. Our goal is to finish the game demo and wrap up all marketing materials by the end of January so we have time to set up meetings for GDC.
We have a large game design document created as well as several supporting documents. We're using Perforce, which is directly integrated into the engine.
If you are interested in hearing more, PM this account directly.
Replies
We also want to clarify that this project is indeed royalty based. We have created a royalty project before that was sold and people actually earned royalties. Not many indie companies can say this! That project is currently under review for further funding towards a console release so I can't mention it publicly, but come talk to us and we can discuss it! More details about how we do royalties is below.
We're still looking for one artist - our cinematic animator is itching to bring some characters to life. Portfolios (or some easy way to show your previous work) are required! We will train you on how to take your nice UE3-generation assets and make them look 10x better in UE4, but we don't have the time to spend training beginner artists on how to create decent looking art from scratch. Bring your existing skills and we will try to make them better.
What we've learned, from experience, is that the best way to handle royalties for nearly any realistic scenario is to take the following steps:
Royalty percentages will be granted by the team lead and will be based on the amount of work each individual contributes that is either in the final product or directly resulted in the creation of the final product. It will be an individual vs. total contribution percentage. In the event that the project gets enough funding to hire team members as employees, each contributor will be granted a certain salary amount equivalent to their currently earned royalty percentage. Contributors that no longer wish to work on the project as salary employees (or who are asked to leave) will be bought out of their existing royalty percentage based on the total funding granted and an independent professional valuation of the project's worth.
On that note,
Yes, we have experience getting projects funded. Does that make us special? Do we have the 'silver bullet' to funding? Not even close. Our experience has taught us, above all else, that nothing is guaranteed. We've had publishers beg us for partnership on a project but couldn't afford our requested funding due to their own money being tied into too many existing games. That had nothing to do with our company at the time, or all the very talented developers that worked on the project that the publisher loved. We had no control over their schedule, and that happens a lot. That project later got funded by another publisher, but it was 8 months of torture to get there.
We are realistic about our goals with the project and the team. We're looking for people who are first and foremost interested in making an awesome fantasy game. People who will contribute their thoughts and opinions as well as their talent.
We want to list our previous experiences and successes to help show potential artists that there is benefit to be gained by working with us. It won't be the red carpet path to your new Ferrari, but working with people who already understand all the basics and many advanced game development techniques means that you'll get to see very interesting and very fun game mechanics come to life.
Wow, sorry for the long response! Thanks for reading!
TL: DR - Need 1 character artist. Royalties are discussed in more detail. We have shipped games that earned royalties before. Something about fun times.
We should have some art to showcase soon.
Thanks for reading!