Senior Vfx Artist

**Company Overview**:
A leader in creating deep and engaging experiences on PC and mobile, Jagex was founded in 2001 and is today one of the UK’s biggest and most respected video game developers and publishers.

Famed for its flagship MMOs RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, Jagex has welcomed more than 260million player accounts to its world and created a $1bn lifetime franchise revenue. Today the RuneScape franchise exists beyond running games in live operations; our titles are living games that connect and inspire millions of players, with content and experiences both inside and outside of inexhaustible game worlds.

Both RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, on PC and mobile, offer ever-evolving, highly-active worlds and our community-focussed development ethos empowers players to have a real say in how each game is shaped.

Jagex is expanding and extending its portfolio with fresh franchise titles, new IP and, in 2018 launched Jagex Partners, delivering third-party publishing and operational services exclusively for the living games of the future.

Jagex employs more than 400 people at its Cambridge headquarters and is on the hunt for talented people to work across the business to help the company to achieve yet another year of record growth and player satisfaction.

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Job Purpose:
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Your role as Senior VFX Artist is to work closely with the art director to design and deliver dramatic and exciting 2D and 3D visual effects that fit the world style, make game-play information clear, and bring the world and actions in it to life.

To create and implement benchmark quality VFX meeting the art direction criteria. You set the quality bar and provide artistic, technical guidance, coaching and mentoring to others on how to achieve it.

To develop and evolve the VFX style. This includes setting visual and animation rules for VFX and documenting these rules in clear style guides.

To collaborate closely with the design lead and animation lead to make combat exciting and rewarding with the VFX clearly signalling what type and level of attack/defense is being used.

To collaborate closely with the environment lead to make the game world as full of life and appeal as possible while highlighting key game play features in the environment.

To collaborate closely with the technical art and engine teams to ensure the VFX are optimal and efficient and that the tool chain for VFX delivery improves and evolves.

At a senior level, it is important to demonstrate an all-round ability to solve problems reliably and autonomously with great organizational, scheduling and mentorship skills. You must show an ability to look more broadly at product development and strategize accordingly within discipline.

Overall, as a senior you are expected to take on a high level of responsibility for the quality and timely delivery of complex tasks on a project.

**Key Duties**:

- .Consistently deliver VFX to the very highest standards as benchmarked against the wider industry. These are impressive, fantasy style visual effects, that are dynamic and vibrant and communicate essential gameplay information.
- Demonstrate professional knowledge of the art and animation fundamentals that form the foundations of great VFX so that VFX is delivered showing consistently excellent artistic judgements.
- Demonstrate the ability to work in different styles including skills at creating stylized, hand painted VFX and sprite animation frames.
- Develop and evolve the VFX style so that it fits the world and makes the game as attractive and exciting as possible.
- Document the VFX style and educate others on it to ensure the VFX style is maintained through all projects within your own and colleagues work via coaching & feedback.
- Supervise the creation of high quality VFX by any junior artists in the team.
- Work closely with our Designers to ensure all game play features are supported and amplified by informative and exciting VFX, this is especially critical for combat.
- Work closely with our Animators to ensure VFX syncs up with our animations and are correctly implemented in our proprietary game engine.
- Work closely with our Technical Artists, and Engine & Tools developers to evolve our VFX technology, tools and pipeline to ensure they are as optimal as possible.
- Work closely with Environment Artists to maximize the mood, appeal and sense of life and movement in all environments in the game.
**Essential Skills**:

- Demonstrate strong Communication skills (Keep managers and any dependent team members informed about the progress of work including any potential problems).
- Demonstrate a willingness and ability to learn, accept and act on constructive feedback.
- Develop, pitch and communicate ideas and concepts in a visual manner.
- Self-organised approach (to naming, filing, backing up and archiving of all work in accordance with company and team policy).
- Ability to identify production issues, seek solutions, source reference and guidance before