Environment Artist
- Alias: matte painter
- Computer-generated (CG) department
- Entry requirements: having experience in art-related careers such as illustrators, proficient in both traditional and digital painting skills
Environment artists create or improve the realistic environments which cannot be produced on-site for any reason, such as a landscape, a distant location, by using both traditional painting techniques, software packages such as Zbrush and animation programs such as Maya.
In other words, the job of matte painters is to make virtual backgrounds and make them look true to life. A matte painter need to master the principles of drawing, lighting, colour, composition and familiar with the rules of perspective, in order to keep a balance with other elements which will be composed in the same footage.
Sometimes, environment artists are known as matte painters. In large-scale companies, the work of matte artists might be divided into two tasks assigned to environment artists and texturing artists, however, one modelling artist need to manage both modelling and texturing in smaller studios.
Here is an introduction video to environment artists in video games:
Look Development Artist
- Alias: Lighting artist, Look dev, Lookdev, Lookdev TD (technical director), Visual development artist
- Computer-generated (CG) department
- Entry requirements: a strong portfolio and showreel that illustrate the abilities, degrees in art/design/graphics, experience in related industry, proficient in using 3D software packages including Maya, C4D, Nuke
Look development artists ensure the consistency of all the artefact in the project by determining the look of computer-generated creatures or objects in differing conditions, for example how it will look when reacting with liquid or fire, as well as in different times of a day. The visual style of all artistic elements that they need to care about include layouts, environments, characters, objects, assets, which means the look dev artist is a professional role in CG department.
Look development artists finish the artwork done by texture artists, adding shading, special effects, contours, etc to illustrate the development of the vision. In this case, they should oversee and ensure the atmosphere from the final work helps in storytelling. This is known as rendering process. When the visual style is approved by VFX director, it will be set as a reference across the studio.
In some companies, look dev artists play a supervisor role in keeping a balance between modelling/texture artists and lighting artists. However, some studios tend to combine them with lighting artists.
Here is a showreel by the lookdev artist:
Lighting Artist
- Alias: Lighter, Lighting TD
- Computer-generated (CG) department
- Entry requirements: work experience in VFX, film lighting , proficient in using renderers and digital paint software, programming skills using Python or C++
Lighting in VFX is the collection of techniques used to simulate light in computer graphics scenes. Compared with film lighting, CG lighting cannot be produced without a patch of 3D lighting software such as V-Ray, Arnold, Redshift and Renderman, hence proficiency in these computer-based packages is the threshold.
There are a variety of light sources, interactions, models, shading techniques, and effects which can be chosen to suit the needs of each application.
Light sources can be divided into 4 types: point, directional, spotlight and ambient.
Point sources emit light from a single point in all directions, with the intensity of the light decreasing with distance. An example of a point source is a standalone light bulb.
A directional source (or distant source) uniformly lights a scene from one direction. Unlike a point source, the intensity of light from a directional source does not change with distance, as the directional source is treated as though it is extremely far away from the scene. An example of a directional source is sunlight.
A spotlight produces a directed cone of light. The light becomes more intense closer to the spotlight source and to the center of the light cone. An example of a spotlight is a flashlight.
Ambient light sources illuminate objects even when no other light source is present. The intensity of ambient light is independent of direction, distance, and other objects, meaning the effect is completely uniform throughout the scene. This source ensures that objects are visible even in complete darkness.
In CG lighting systems, the overall effect of a light source on an object is determined by the combination of the object’s interactions with different components. The three primary lighting components are diffuse, ambient, and specular.
Diffuse primarily contributes to the object’s brightness and forms the basis for its color.
Ambient is directionless. Its intensity determined by the strength of the ambient sources and surface’s ambient reflection coefficient.
Specular gives objects shine and highlights. It is based on the its intensity and the specular reflection coefficient of the surface.
Lighting artist aim to produce lighting for computer-generated (CG) scene and match it to the real world. Moreover, they need to create light to achieve practical or aesthetic effects for particular shots. For example, they can add realism and depth by adjusting the colour, placement and intensity of CG lights to create atmosphere, they are also able to analyze live-action footage as reference. Therefore, it requires a blend of artistry and scientific knowledge to be a good lighting artist.
The role of the lighting artist varies depending on the size of the VFX studio. In larger studios, lighting artists light the shots while a lighting technical director aims to overcome the technical challenges and create the software tools that the lighting artist needs. In other studios, those two roles are usually combined.
Here is a video about how lighting artists work at Naughty Dog:
Reference: