Senior Lighting Artist (7-month contract)

Blackbird Interactive is a creative-fueled, future-driven, independent game studio where the best talent in the industry can find long-term careers to help grow their abilities while working on a wide range of projects, which encompass world-class IPs as well as our own creations across multiple genres.

Our studio operates as a remote-first workplace, offering flexible work arrangements.

At this time, we are only able to hire candidates who are legally eligible to work in Canada and reside within Canada.

Responsibilities

  • Work under the direction of Art Leadership to maintain artistic consistency through lighting standards and workflows as well as adhere to established IP’s aesthetic guidelines.

  • Take ownership of lighting direction in collaboration with Art Leadership to establish a strong, cinematic atmosphere and great composition.

  • Use proprietary engine’s built in lighting tools to produce stunning, cinematic lighting schemes for a range of environments.

  • Optimize lighting setups, shadows, post-processing, and related systems for real-time performance.

  • Troubleshoot and resolve lighting, rendering, and visual clarity issues while maintaining artistic intent.

  • Create and maintain documentation for lighting workflows, standards, and best practices.

  • Mentor an intermediate Lighting Artist in the production pipeline and provide actionable creative feedback

  • Requirements

  • 5+ Years of professional experience lighting environments and scenes in a video game production pipeline.

  • Strong understanding of lighting theory, color space, exposure and physically based natural lighting.

  • Insight into cinematography and dramaturgy, scene blocking and lighting to set different moods.

  • Deep understanding of real-time rendering principles and physically based rendering (PBR) workflows.

  • Experience working with post-processing, exposure, atmospheric effects, and lighting optimization techniques.

  • Ability to balance artistic quality with technical and gameplay requirements

  • Familiarity with modern game art pipelines and collaboration across multidisciplinary teams.

  • Highly detail oriented, technically inclined with strong communication skills and a collaborative, team-oriented mindset.
  • Pluses

  • Passion for grounded, immersive science fiction

  • Experience with proprietary engines

  • Knowledge of performance profiling and optimization related to lighting and rendering

  • Previous cinematic lighting experience