Senior Environment Artist

Company Description

Repeatedly voted one of Montreal’s Top Employers and Employer of the Year for the 2022 Mercuriades Awards, Rodeo FX is a high-end creative company offering services in visual effects, advertising, animation, and experiential.

Nominated for multiple Emmy® Awards for its work on the series Stranger Things season 4, Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power, the independent, Oscar®-winning company boasts close to 800 artists crafting from studios in Montreal, Québec City, Toronto, Los Angeles and Paris.

Rodeo FX is a creative partner to the world’s best storytellers including Netflix, HBO, Disney, Marvel, Amazon Studios, Warner Bros. and Sony, and has collaborated on ads for YouTube, NBC and Apple. Current projects include Dune: Prophecy, Silo Season 2 and Sonic 3. Recently released projects include The Rings of Power Season 2, Venom: The Last Dance, Taika Waitit's Time Bandits, and House of the Dragon Season 2.

Work arrangements:
As a company founded and led by an artist, creativity above all guides us. Our mission is to provide our talents with the freedom and resources they need to deliver quality work and thrive in a stimulating, caring environment. While we require employees to be present in the studio at least three days a week, we maintain flexible work arrangements for the remaining days. This balance ensures that we foster collaboration, maintain our vibrant culture, and encourage in-person interaction and teamwork.

Job Description

This role is open exclusively to Senior Environment Artists with significant experience in the VFX industry, including at least 7 years on high-end, large-scale productions. Work permit sponsorship may be considered, depending on the candidate’s location and the expected processing time.

The Environment Artist designs and assembles photorealistic or stylized 3D environments by combining modeling, texturing, shading, lighting, simple animation, and rendering. Comfortable with projection techniques, they create rich, credible, and technically robust scenes, while respecting the artistic and technical requirements and deadlines of the project.

Working closely with the environment, layout, compositing, and supervision teams, they contribute to delivering inspiring, coherent, and fully integrated environments into the final shots.

Key Responsibilities:
Master your craft

• Model, texture, shade, and light objects, environments, or complete 3D scenes.
• Assemble assets from different sources to create coherent and technically sound environments.
• Deliver scenes ready for rendering or handover to compositing, independently or in collaboration with other departments.
• Respect turnover, naming, resolution, and format guidelines at each stage.

Creative Quality

• Reproduce or stylize environments according to the artistic direction and project vision.
• Propose simple and effective artistic solutions to enrich the readability and depth of scenes.
• Maintain aesthetic consistency across sequences and respect provided visual references.
• Actively participate in dailies to receive and integrate feedback constructively.

Technical Quality

• Effectively use tools (Houdini, Solaris, Maya, etc.) to deliver optimized, stable, and error-free scenes.
• Adjust cameras, assets, and shaders to ensure seamless integration with other departments.
• Quickly identify technical or performance issues and propose realistic solutions.
• Contribute, as needed, to the development or improvement of tools, workflows, or scripts specific to the department.

Communications

• Maintain open communication with artists, leads, and producers regarding the status of deliverables.
• Report any risk of delay or technical blockage and collaborate on prioritization with relevant individuals.
• Clearly present their work and intentions during dailies or internal reviews.
• Document and transmit useful information to facilitate the takeover or adaptation of work by other artists.

Teach, Learn and Grow

• Share discoveries, best practices, or new techniques with colleagues.
• Integrate evolving tools and methods within the department.
• Embrace feedback as a lever for continuous improvement.
• Participate in consolidating quality standards and the department's culture of excellence.

Qualifications

• 7 years of experience in the VFX industry in environment.
• Solid skills in modeling, texturing, shading, lighting, and set dressing.
• Proficiency in Houdini / Solaris, Maya, or other 3D modeling software.
• Good knowledge of Substance Painter and Arnold or Karma for rendering.
• Basic knowledge of Nuke and ability to do their own precomps.
• Understanding of architectural, geographical, and visual composition principles.
• Rigor, autonomy, attention to detail, team spirit, and positive attitude.
• Asset: Knowledge of Flow or other production management tool.
• Asset: Experience in tool development, scripting, or task automation.
• Asset: Familiarity with projection techniques, matte painting, or camera mapping.

Additional Information

Perks & Benefits

• Full-time, Permanent Contract;
• Flexible and hybrid work structure in all our locations;
• 5 paid sick/personal days;
• 2 additional statutory holidays in the winter holidays;
• Group Insurance, access to Dialogue online support and to an Employee Assistance Program (EAP);
• RRSP with employer contribution;
• Discounts on public transports, several spas, sports classes, art center, cafes, furniture and several other local businesses.

Diversity : At Rodeo FX, diversity is a core value. We’re committed to creating an inclusive, equitable workplace where different perspectives are embraced. Every team member brings unique insight that strengthens our creativity, challenges our thinking, and helps us deliver better work.

Rodeo FX may use AI-based tools to support certain steps of the recruitment process, such as interview transcription or preliminary application analysis. These tools may be operated by third-party providers, and data may be processed outside Quebec. These tools never replace human decision-making: all final hiring decisions are made by our recruitment team and hiring managers. To learn more about how we protect your personal information and your rights, please consult our Privacy Policy.