Senior Matte Painter / Environment Generalist

Position Overview

We are inviting experienced Senior and higher-level Environment Generalists to express interest for upcoming openings within the Matte Painting Department at our onsite location in Wellington. The projects include exciting television series and feature films.

Team and Workflow

The Matte Painting team functions as a fully integrated environment generalist unit, covering a broad range of environment creation processes. This involves everything from procedural world building and USD-based scene assembly in Houdini Solaris to 2.5D and compositing workflows. Collaboration with other departments is essential in crafting, extending, and enhancing photo-realistic environments with cutting-edge standards. Workflows are USD-native and Houdini-centric, requiring artists who are adept both technically within scene graph architectures and artistically.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and support technical strategies for Matte Painting tasks across projects, ensuring consistency with current workflows and adjusting to new ones.
• Lead regular reviews, providing guidance and support to matte painters on your team.
• Engage in project bidding and scheduling in collaboration with Heads of Department and Production.
• Represent the Matte Painting team in meetings such as show dailies and other key forums.
• Create and enhance environments utilizing fully rendered 3D and 2.5D Digimatte techniques.
• Develop environmental assets and conduct look development supporting Digital Matte Painting across sequences.
• Blend photographic and rendered components to achieve photorealistic outcomes.
• Organize complex 3D and 2.5D setups efficiently for sharing among artists.
• Collaborate across multiple disciplines to deliver shots while supporting broader departmental needs.
• Assist show and department supervision in workflow planning and scheduling.
• Communicate effectively with artists, supervisors, and production to identify and resolve issues proactively.
• Maintain top-quality delivery standards throughout the project lifecycle.

Desired Candidate Attributes

• Capable of collaborating closely with artists and production to meet demanding schedules with high-quality outputs.
• Highly organized with experience managing multiple artists and numerous tasks simultaneously.
• Excellent communication skills for clear and confident interaction across departments.
• Proactive, adaptable, and cooperative approach to work and interpersonal relations.
• Positive, empathetic leadership style fostering strong team and company relationships.
• Problem-solving mindset focused on process and pipeline improvements, including mentoring and training team members.

Essential Qualifications

• A minimum of five years’ experience producing photorealistic environment work in feature films, gaming, or comparable productions.
• Extensive professional use and proficiency in Maya, Houdini, Solaris, Nuke, and Photoshop.
• Recent hands-on experience with lighting, compositing, modeling, look development, and environment layout processes.

Additional Skills and Preferences

• Familiarity with Gaea, Terragen, Mari, ZBrush, and Substance.
• Skills in procedural modeling, layout, and look development workflows.
• Experience working in Linux/KDE environments.
• A BFA or equivalent in Painting, Photography, Computer Graphics, or related disciplines.
• An active interest in painting, drawing, and sculpting arts.
• Experience in conceptual illustration or design is a plus.

Company Values and Culture

At Wētā FX, we celebrate diversity and strive to foster a welcoming, respectful, supportive, and appreciative workplace culture. We pride ourselves on quality and aim to create an exceptional workplace experience. We are committed to an open-minded environment encouraging our crew to be authentic and themselves.

Equal Opportunity and Application Support

We ensure a discrimination-free recruitment experience. If any accommodations are required to facilitate the hiring process, please inform us. We look forward to hearing from candidates interested in joining our team in Wellington.