We’re recruiting for a Senior 3D Artist at Hutch. But what EXACTLY are we looking for? Here’s Ben, one of our Senior Artists, with everything you need to know…

RARE CREATURES

In many games companies, especially large, AAA dev focused outfits, 3D artists are to be found everywhere. Move some boxes, look under a desk, open the fridge - you’ll find yourself a 3D artist of some description. Environment, Character, Creature, Vehicle, Prop, Texture, Weapons, Hard-surface, Vegetation - it’s an increasingly specialised role.

Hutch isn’t quite like that - we don’t have many of these exotic creatures around the place. But that means the ones we do have are pretty special.

HATS OFF

As a senior 3D artist at Hutch, you’ll be a bit like the Queen - you’ll wear a variety of different hats. Your main hat will be environment work, building engaging, memorable and distinctive environments for our players to race around and gaze lovingly at. What’s most satisfying about this work is you’ll be heavily involved from the very earliest concept stage working with the AD, with full ownership of the environment through reference gathering, grey-boxing, final geometry, texturing, lighting and set dress work - the final result will very much be your baby.

We’re looking for someone who’s not only happy with that sense of ownership, but eager for it. We also need you to be tech-savvy - mobile titles can live or die by their performance. Us artists all love the shiny, but it can be rewarding to work with technical restrictions too - how good can I get this to look within these requirements? You may surprise yourself!

You’ll also be working closely with gameplay designers - you can tell who they are as they’re full of ideas and love to change their minds about things! Gameplay is always an important consideration, but depending on the game, it can be an integral part of environment work - e.g. I’d like to put a ‘hero’ asset building here, but how does that affect where the player feels they’re supposed to be driving? Does it distract or make the driving line hard to read? Let’s go talk to the designer, see what they think! You may also get to undertake some design work yourself, if the gameplay, track layout and aesthetics are very closely intertwined.

But of course, the Queen has many sparkly hats, and so will you. In my time at Hutch, I’ve designed vehicle liveries and upgrade add-ons, created 2D and 3D static background artwork, created store screenshots, drawn 2D character artwork and created key offline rendered marketing imagery that is seen by millions via the Apple store and Google Play. Examples of which can be found on this website or even on the walls of the Hutch office!

VROOM VROOM

You might have noticed, but Hutch have a thing about cars. It’s our area of focus and we have a decent number of people in the office who could regale you with anecdotes about broken fan belts or demonstrate what a differential gear does using hobnobs from the office biscuit bucket. But there are also many Hutchies who would be baffled and scared by a spark plug. A love of all things vehicle is a bonus, but it’s certainly not a requirement - we just need you to create the spectacular stages for the cars to shine on!

So in summary, if you’re an artist who enjoys taking ownership of their work, looks for variety in their responsibilities (and wearing metaphorical hats), is happy to engage in feedback with designers, the AD and other project stakeholders and is confident enough in their own abilities to bring something new to the Hutch table, get in touch!