Senior UE5 Lighting Artist

Job Overview

We are seeking an experienced Senior UE5 Lighting Artist to join our team and contribute to international AAA open-world game projects.

In this role, you will be responsible for the overall lighting design, atmosphere crafting, and visual quality enhancement of massive open-world environments. You will leverage high-quality real-time lighting solutions to build immersive gaming experiences.

This position requires a strong balance of artistic expression and technical optimization capabilities—ensuring top-tier visual fidelity while meeting the rigorous performance standards of an open-world project.

Key Responsibilities

Lighting Design & Production

Design and implement comprehensive lighting schemes for open-world environments.
Formulate lighting representations for day/night cycles and dynamic weather systems in alignment with the project's art style.
Handle interior and exterior scene lighting setup and atmosphere crafting.
Enhance visual depth, spatial awareness, and narrative expression within game scenes.
Continuously iterate and optimize visual quality based on feedback from the Art Director.

UE5 Real-Time Lighting Production

Proficiently utilize the UE5 lighting ecosystem, including:

Lumen Global Illumination
Virtual Shadow Maps (VSM)
Volumetric Fog
Sky Atmosphere
Exponential Height Fog
Post Process Volumes
Reflection Systems
HDR Pipeline

Take ownership of: Lighting Layout, Color Management, Exposure Control, Atmosphere Design, Weather Expression, and Time-of-Day Cycle Representation.

Open-World Project Duties

Participate in lighting planning for large-scale open-world maps.
Responsible for unifying the lighting style while creating distinct visual identities across multiple biomes.
Address and resolve lighting management challenges under the World Partition framework.
Optimize lighting performance during level streaming states.
Ensure visual consistency across various times of day and weather conditions.
Support exploration experiences and visual guidance through strategic lighting design.

Technical Optimization

Conduct performance profiling and optimization for scene lighting.
Collaborate with Technical Artists to establish lighting budgets and specifications.
Optimize the following components to meet target performance milestones without sacrificing visual fidelity:

Dynamic Lighting
Shadow Cost
Reflection Cost
Volumetric Effects
Post Process Effects

Requirements

Mandatory Qualifications

5+ years of professional experience in the game industry.
Contributed to at least one shipped AA or AAA project.
Direct development experience in open-world projects.
Proficient in Unreal Engine 5.
Outstanding lighting aesthetics, artistic sensibilities, and color control capabilities.
Familiar with cinematic photography language and camera lens expressions.
Exceptional ability to shape environment atmosphere and mood.
Capable of independently taking ownership of large-scale regional lighting production.

Technical Competencies

Candidates must possess practical, project-proven experience in one or more of the following core technical areas:

Core UE5 Technologies: Production experience with Lumen, Nanite, Virtual Shadow Maps, World Partition, Data Layers, and Open-World Streaming.
Performance Optimization: Experience in GPU performance profiling, Render Pass analysis, and utilizing tools like Unreal Insights and ProfileGPU. Console platform optimization experience is highly valued.
Large Map Experience: Experience with open-world day/night cycles, dynamic weather lighting systems, macro-level map lighting planning, and biome-specific lighting design.

Preferred Qualifications (Pluses)

Priority will be given to candidates with experience in:

Houdini pipeline integration.
A Technical Artist background.
Blueprint development capabilities.
Shader creation experience.
Background in photography, cinematography, or film/TV lighting.
HDR project experience.
Console platform development experience.
Multiplayer open-world project experience.
International AAA project development experience.

Portfolio Requirements

Candidates must provide one or more of the following:

An up-to-date UE5 lighting portfolio.
Scene breakdown cases demonstrating "Before / After" comparisons.
Open-world project case studies.
Day/night cycle or dynamic weather system demonstrations.
Video showreels or cinematic flythroughs.
Priority given to portfolios showcasing: Lumen applications, Open-World scales, AAA-quality projects, Lighting Breakdowns, or Optimization workflows.

Preferred Project Experience

Experience in the following game genres is highly preferred:

Open-World RPGs
Open-World Action games
Survival Crafting games
MMO Open-World projects
Console AAA projects

Reference Titles: Cyberpunk 2077, Horizon series, Ghost of Tsushima, Assassin's Creed series, Red Dead Redemption series, Black Myth: Wukong.

What We Are Looking For

Extreme pursuit of excellence in lighting and visual expression.
Passion for AAA game development.
Constant tracking and learning of cutting-edge UE5 rendering technologies.
Strong communication skills and a collaborative team spirit.
Ability to work efficiently and adaptively within an internationalized project environment.

Benefits

Base salary, Bonus, Health insurance, EAP Program, Relocation support.