Lighting Artist - GameSim - Talent Pipeline

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!

• →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 physically based rendering and material response.
• →Understanding of basic lighting optimization, including light cost, shadows, volumetrics, reflections, scalability, and platform constraints.
• →Ability to take ownership of assigned scenes and follow them through review and completion.
• →Ability to receive, interpret, and implement artistic and technical feedback.
• →Experience reviewing artwork or providing constructive feedback to teammates.
• →Ability to identify work that does not meet an established quality target and communicate practical improvements.
• →Ability to balance visual quality, technical requirements, production scope, and schedule.
• →Strong written, verbal, and interpersonal communication skills.
• →Ability to organize priorities, communicate risks, and follow work through to completion.
• →Experience collaborating with multiple game-development disciplines.
• →Ability to adapt to different projects, visual styles, engines, pipelines, platforms, and client expectations.
• →Ability to work effectively both independently and as part of a distributed team.

Candidates should have experience with a professional real-time lighting toolset. This may include:

• Unreal Engine 5 or another modern real-time engine
• Lumen or comparable real-time global-illumination systems
• GPU Lightmass, CPU Lightmass, or comparable baked-lighting systems
• Real-time profiling, visualization, and debugging tools
• Photoshop or comparable image-editing software
• DaVinci Resolve, Nuke, After Effects, or comparable color and compositing tools
• Maya, Blender, 3ds Max, or another 3D content-creation package
• Perforce or another production source-control system
• Jira, Confluence, Miro, or comparable planning and documentation tools

Expertise with every listed application is not required. We are primarily interested in candidates who demonstrate strong lighting fundamentals, sound production judgment, adaptability, and the ability to learn project-specific tools.

• Experience working in co-development, outsourcing, consulting, or work-for-hire game production.
• Experience contributing to a shipped PC or console title.
• Experience working across realistic and stylized visual pipelines.
• Previous experience acting as a lighting point person, task coordinator, reviewer, or feature owner.
• Experience guiding junior artists or supporting teammates without formal management authority.
• Experience working with remote teams, partner studios, or external vendors.
• Experience owning lighting for a level, environment, sequence, or gameplay feature.
• Knowledge of Unreal Engine systems such as Lumen, Nanite, Virtual Shadow Maps, volumetric fog, reflection systems, exposure controls, post-process volumes, and scalability settings.
• Experience with dynamic time-of-day systems, weather systems, destructible environments, or changing gameplay states.
• Experience lighting cinematics, characters, dialogue scenes, or scripted sequences.
• Knowledge of cinematography, photography, film lighting, camera exposure, and color theory.
• Familiarity with HDR displays, tone mapping, calibration, or accessibility considerations.
• Familiarity with rendering pipelines, shader behavior, and material development.
• Familiarity with Blueprints, Python, editor scripting, automation, or technical-art workflows.
• Experience creating lighting documentation, templates, benchmark scenes, or review materials.

Your portfolio or reel should demonstrate:

• Strong real-time lighting with effective composition, mood, color, contrast, readability, atmosphere, and scene cohesion.
• Work presented in a commercial, proprietary, or modern real-time engine.
• Clear explanations of your individual contribution, responsibilities, workflow, and production decisions.
• Gameplay lighting that guides attention, supports navigation, and reinforces the intended player experience.
• Effective integration between lighting, environments, materials, VFX, atmosphere, characters, and post-processing.
• An understanding of optimization, scalability, technical limitations, and production constraints.
• Examples showing ownership of lighting from initial setup through final delivery.
• The ability to work from concept art, reference, environment blockouts, narrative direction, gameplay requirements, or developing creative direction.
• Adaptability across different projects, genres, visual styles, or lighting conditions.

We also encourage applicants to include:

• Day and night treatments of the same environment.
• Dynamic and baked lighting examples.
• Lighting created for different gameplay states, weather conditions, or times of day.
• Before-and-after comparisons showing how lighting improved readability, mood, composition, or performance.
• Examples of work reviewed or coordinated under your guidance, with your responsibilities clearly explained.
• Lighting guides, reference boards, benchmark scenes, review notes, documentation, or templates created for teammates.

Please clearly identify your individual contribution to collaborative work.

A resume and portfolio or reel link are required.

Please include shipped-game credits or comparable professional project experience where applicable. Candidates may be asked to participate in a portfolio review, technical discussion, leadership interview, or art assessment as part of the selection process.

This position is currently open to candidates residing in the following U.S. states only:

Arizona (AZ), Connecticut (CT), Florida (FL), lowa (IA), Illinois (IL), Massachusetts (MA), Maine (ME), Michigan (MI), Minnesota (MN), New Hampshire (NH), Nevada (NV), Ohio (OH), Oregon (OR), South Carolina (SC), Tennessee (TN), Texas (TX), Virginia (VA), Wisconsin (WI), Montana (MT), Alabama (AL), Georgia (GA), Indiana (IN), Louisiana (LA), North Carolina (NC), New Jersey (NJ), Oklahoma (OK), and Utah (UT).

While applicants from all listed states will be considered, the ideal candidate will be located in Orlando (FL) Austin (TX) or New Orleans (LA). Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States and reside in one of the eligible states listed above.

• Opportunity to work on different projects
• 3 weeks of accrued paid time off
• Benefits package including medical, dental and vision
• Sick Leave
• Disability Coverage
• Corporate holidays
• 401(k) Retirement Plan with company matching
• Professional Development
• Snacks, drinks, ping pong, and more!

GameSim is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds and identities and evaluate candidates based on skills, experience, and alignment with the role.

Keywords Studios is dedicated to following a well-established Equal Opportunities Policy. We endeavor to create a workplace which provides for equal opportunities for all employees and potential employees.

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