Senior UE5 Lighting Artist
Keywords Studios · Shanghai
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.