To help us process your application efficiently, please start your email subject line with “[SSTACES]”.
We are looking for a Technical Artist who lives and breathes stylized rendering. Your primary focus will be creating and owning the character shader pipeline for Astral Sync - building the systems that make our heroes, enemies, and NPCs look unmistakably anime. Over time, your scope expands to environment materials and the broader shader library powering the game.
You will work embedded in our Art Team, sitting at the intersection of art and engineering - bridging the gap between our artists' vision and Unreal Engine's technical reality.
Responsibilities
- Design, build and maintain the character shader pipeline in UE5, in experimental collaboration with the art director.
- Develop and iterate on a modular, artist-friendly Material system in Unreal's Material Editor and HLSL, enabling the Art Team to work efficiently without deep shader knowledge
- Create and maintain PBR-compliant materials for environment assets (props, architecture, terrain) that integrate cleanly with the stylized character aesthetic
- Establish and document material/shader standards and best practices for the studio pipeline
- Profile and optimize shader complexity for both PC and mobile targets — collaborating with engineering on GPU budget and draw call management
- Support the Art Team with shader-related technical issues, material instance setup, and texture workflow (channel packing, normal map conventions, etc.
Requirements
- Demonstrated experience shipping or contributing to an anime-style game
- Experience with anime shading techniques like CEL-shading, Rimlights, stylized rendering, PBR workflows, etc..
- Solid understanding of PBR principles and how to blend physically-based workflows with non-photorealistic goals
- Proficiency with texture creation and optimization for games: channel packing, texture atlasing, compression formats, mip strategies
- Experience profiling and optimizing shaders and materials for performance on both desktop and mobile
- Good communication skills — able to explain technical constraints to artists and translate art direction into shader requirements
Nice-to-Have
- Ability to read and write HLSL for custom shader nodes and post-process effects
- Experience building Niagara-based VFX materials or shader-driven particle systems
- Experience working in Substance Designer or similar procedural texture tools
- Background in or strong appreciation for anime visual culture — knowledge of the genre's reference shaders (HI3, PGR, Blue Protocol, etc.) is a big plus
How to Apply
Please send us the following:
- Your CV or résumé
- A portfolio or reel showcasing relevant Shader work
- Your availability and earliest possible start date
- Your annual salary expectation for part-time engagement (20 h/week)
- Label “[SSTACES]” in your subject line
To help us process your application efficiently, please start your email subject line with “[SSTACES]”.
.jpg)