Lead Vad

The Virtual Art Department is one of only a few of its kind in the world. Our small and passionate team of generalists deliver real-time assets for Mocap, Previs and Animation using the unique Weta proprietary pipeline and contribute to the successful delivery of shows. In VAD we value our diverse culture and professional backgrounds, and we encourage an atmosphere of learning and teamwork.

Collaboration, efficiency and learning are our core values. Our mission statement is “working closely with Art, Animation, Layout, Mocap and Onset to build a usable, real-time virtual world for the director to visualize the creative process of film making.”

We expect you to successfully lead a team through the development and completion of multiple high-profile projects. You’ll have a willingness to learn new tools, use technology to achieve work objectives and work efficiently within a production environment under tight deadlines. You’ll be a creative problem solver, who is organized and critical of your own work.

This role is for a Lead Artist with exceptional modelling, texturing and layout skills who is also confident in lighting concepts. To thrive, you’ll have extensive experience in production environments and be able to create high quality, production specified assets for use in real-time and the larger VFX pipeline, from 2d reference, Previs, scan data and final pixel assets too.

**Your responsibilities will include**:

- Conducting regularly scheduled rounds, overseeing and supporting VAD
- Participating in bidding and scheduling of work with the HOD and Department Production
- Representing the VAD team at meetings such as show dailies, client calls, workflows etc.
- Creating, extending or enhancing methodologies to provide assets for Real-time
- Efficient and accessible organization of set ups to share with other artists, to provide fully textured assets for all applicable uses in real-time
- Assisting show and dept supervision/management when planning workflows and scheduling work
- Effectively communicating with artists, supervisors and Production daily to flag issues and offer solutions
- Maintaining a high standard of quality across projects and client deliverables

**We are looking for artists with the following attributes**:

- A reel demonstrating a wide range of organic and hard surface models with clean and efficient topology (preferably with wireframe stills)
- Quick & efficient UV & texture skills for texturing assets using Mari, Photoshop, Quixel, Substance Painter/Designer
- Be able to work under pressure and to tight deadlines, taking direction and addressing written and verbal notes with quick turnarounds
- Experience with Game Engines (Unreal or Unity)
- Professional applicable experience in games, VR, VFX/commercial related industries (7+ years) of Maya 3d
- Experience in successfully leading a team through the development and completion of multiple high-profile projects
- Thorough research skills - you’ll be able to interpret architectural plans and scan data, with a strong understanding of scale, so that what is built is accurate to the real world and relationship between physical set builds and virtual locations
- Flexibility to perform in a constantly changing work environment, able to compromise and take critique well
- Proficient in planning, troubleshooting, analysing and providing strategic solutions for the productions specific needs while maintaining a compelling vision of the organization’s goals
- The ability to model as part of a team, to share assets, work to a high standard and quality check your own and other's work and maintain a positive outlook at work

Please note, you may need to travel offsite and outside of New Zealand (once permitted) if required.

At Wētā FX we celebrate our diversity and believe in creating an environment where all our crew feel welcomed, respected, supported and appreciated. We define ourselves by the quality of our work, and we’re striving to build a workplace experience that’s second to none. Here at Wētā FX we value open minds and encourage our crew to be themselves.

If this sounds like you, we want to hear from you now

Location: Wellington, New Zealand