Lighting Artist - GameSim - Talent Pipeline (Orlando)

Overview

Liquid Development is hiring on behalf of GameSim, a Keywords Studio. This position will support GameSim production teams.

GameSim is a game development studio that partners with clients to build games across PC/console and a range of art styles. We care about craftsmanship, collaboration, and shipping work we’re proud to put our names on. If you love building environments and believable spaces we’d like to meet you. Our headquarters is based in Orlando, FL!

Liquid Development was founded in 2000 and is the largest outsourcing art studio in North America. We offer a fun and cooperative work atmosphere, where collaboration is encouraged among a diversely talented team to remain on the cutting edge of content creation. Everyday Liquid Development is producing work at the forefront of modern game production and the demands for our services continue to grow. Our team has contributed to AAA titles within the Halo, Mass Effect, Borderlands, and Call of Duty franchises - Liquid Development is the team these titles turn to when they need the best.

Talent Pipeline Posting Notice
Please note that this posting is not tied to an immediate vacancy. We are proactively building a pipeline of qualified candidates in anticipation of potential hiring needs over the coming months. Applications will be reviewed and retained for future consideration as opportunities arise.

We are seeking a Lighting Artist to create high-quality real-time lighting and help support the execution of lighting work across GameSim projects.

This is a hands‑on production role with opportunities to take on project-level leadership responsibilities. In addition to completing assigned lighting work, you may help coordinate tasks, review the work of other artists, provide constructive feedback, and ensure scenes meet the visual and technical quality bar established by Art Direction and the client.

You will collaborate with Art Directors, Environment Artists, Technical Artists, VFX Artists, Designers, Engineers, Producers, clients, and partner studios to translate creative direction into lighting solutions that support mood, gameplay readability, environmental storytelling, and performance.

What Success Looks Like

Within your first 90 days, you will:

• Develop a clear understanding of the project’s visual direction, lighting pipeline, gameplay requirements, technical constraints, and production schedule.
• Build effective working relationships with Art Direction, Production, Technical Art, Environment Art, Design, and other project disciplines.
• Create polished lighting work that meets the project’s established visual and technical quality bar.
• Take ownership of lighting for assigned scenes, environments, sequences, or gameplay areas.
• Provide useful feedback and support to other artists when asked to review or coordinate lighting work.
• Identify artistic, technical, or production risks early and communicate them to the appropriate project leads.
• Deliver assigned work on schedule and respond effectively to internal and client feedback.

Responsibilities

Lighting Creation and Execution

• Create high‑quality real‑time lighting for gameplay environments, levels, cinematics, characters, and interactive sequences.
• Translate art direction, concept art, reference material, gameplay requirements, narrative goals, and client feedback into effective lighting solutions.
• Use lighting to establish mood, atmosphere, visual hierarchy, environmental storytelling, and player focus.
• Ensure lighting supports gameplay readability, navigation, combat visibility, character presentation, and important interactive elements.
• Develop and refine exposure, color, contrast, fog, atmosphere, reflections, shadows, emissive response, color grading, and post‑processing.
• Create lighting for a range of visual styles, including realistic, stylized, cinematic, and highly art‑directed projects.
• Maintain visual consistency across related environments, gameplay spaces, sequences, times of day, and lighting conditions.
• Bring assigned scenes from initial lighting setup through final polish.
• Respond to feedback from Art Direction, project leadership, and clients in a timely and professional manner.
• Ensure completed work meets project requirements for quality, performance, organization, and delivery.

Leadership and Quality Support

• Help oversee lighting work for an assigned scene, group of scenes, feature, or milestone when requested by project leadership.
• Review the work of other lighting artists or multidisciplinary artists contributing to lighting.
• Provide clear, respectful, and actionable feedback through written notes, live reviews, reference images, paintovers, or in‑engine examples.
• Help ensure lighting work follows approved visual targets, technical standards, and project requirements.
• Communicate expected outcomes, priorities, and quality standards to artists working within an assigned area.
• Monitor the visual progress of assigned lighting work and identify scenes that may require additional revision or support.
• Confirm that feedback has been addressed before work is submitted for senior, Art Director, or client review.
• Support junior or less‑experienced artists with lighting fundamentals, engine workflows, scene organization, optimization, and production practices.
• Lead by example through reliable execution, clear communication, constructive collaboration, and professional conduct.
• Escalate unresolved quality, schedule, scope, or technical concerns to the appropriate senior artist, Art Director, or Producer.

Planning and Production Support

• Work with Art Direction and Production to understand lighting priorities, tasks, estimates, and milestone expectations.
• Help break lighting goals into clear and manageable production tasks.
• Provide progress updates and communicate when assigned work is at risk of missing quality, technical, or scheduling requirements.
• Participate in daily reviews, art reviews, milestone evaluations, and planning discussions.
• Help prepare lighting work for internal reviews, client presentations, milestone submissions, and final delivery.
• Balance hands‑on production responsibilities with review, coordination, troubleshooting, and team support.
• Adjust priorities when creative direction, technical requirements, production scope, or client feedback changes.
• Maintain accurate task status and documentation using the project’s production‑management tools.

Technical and Pipeline Responsibilities

• Work with Technical Art and Engineering to ensure lighting is visually effective, technically stable, and appropriate for the target platform.
• Follow established budgets for dynamic lights, shadows, volumetrics, reflections, global illumination, memory, and scalability.
• Identify and help resolve issues involving exposure, shadow artifacts, light leaking, reflections, volumetrics, bake quality, material response, and post‑processing.
• Use dynamic, baked, stationary, or hybrid lighting approaches according to the project’s established pipeline.
• Profile assigned lighting work and make informed visual adjustments to meet performance requirements.
• Validate lighting across relevant gameplay cameras, display settings, hardware targets, times of day, weather states, and scalability levels.
• Follow project standards for scene organization, naming conventions, source control, documentation, and asset integration.
• Contribute to reusable lighting setups, templates, documentation, validation processes, and team best practices.
• Identify workflow problems and communicate potential improvements to senior artists, Technical Art, or project leadership.

Cross-Discipline Collaboration

• Collaborate with Environment Art to ensure geometry, materials, composition, and set dressing support the intended lighting.
• Partner with VFX to integrate fog, particles, weather, fire, emissive effects, and atmospheric elements.
• Work with Design to ensure lighting supports navigation, player guidance, combat readability, objectives, and interactive systems.
• Coordinate with Character Art and Animation to maintain readable and appealing character presentation.
• Support cinematic lighting needs involving shot composition, continuity, exposure, character lighting, and narrative focus.
• Communicate artistic and technical concerns clearly to both creative and non‑creative stakeholders.
• Work effectively with distributed teams, partner studios, external vendors, and clients across different time zones.

Requirements

• Professional experience creating lighting for games, real‑time projects, animation, visualization, or a closely related field.
• A portfolio or reel demonstrating strong real‑time lighting work.
• Strong understanding of lighting fundamentals, including value, color, contrast, composition, visual hierarchy, atmosphere, exposure, shadow, and material response.
• Experience lighting gameplay environments or interactive real‑time scenes.
• Understanding of how lighting supports mood, gameplay readability, navigation, environmental storytelling, and player focus.
• Professional experience using Unreal Engine or another modern real‑time engine.
• Experience with dynamic or baked lighting, global illumination, reflections, volumetrics, exposure, color grading, and post‑processing.
• Working knowledge of physi]]>