2d art is used in almost every game out there, especially in triple A titles such as Fallout, Assassins Creed, and Call of Duty. Every texture the player can see had to be designed by an artist, the ground, walls, vehicles, and other characters.
3d art leans towards the modelling aspect of games, animation, and VFX, and its usual for most 3d artists to work in teams. 3d artists are also often consulted on the development of the storyboard to get a keen idea on what they are exactly making.
Modelling is necessary in AAA games nowadays to make it look more detailed and sharp.
Creative Director:
The Creative Director is a fairly new role in the games industry and it is ensuring the quality and style of the artwork, music and gameplay within a game. Not all companies have a Creative Director so they share out the responsibilities to the Lead Programmer, Lead Artist and Producer.
A Creative Director is not an entry level route, you will usually need around 5 years experience in a senior game development position to even be considered for the job, or you could acquire a similar job in special effects or animation to move up to creative director.
Lead Artist:
There are many responsibilities for Lead Artists, they are responsible for the overall look of the game, the art style of the game, directing the production of the visual material throughout the games development, and finally managing the art and animation team.
EA's Lead Artist has a minimum wage of £35k and a maximum of £38k.
Casapian Learning's Lead Artist has a minimum wage of 35k and a maximum of £36k
Splash Damage's Lead Artist has a minimum wage of £53k and a maximum of £58k
Level Editor/Designer:
Level editors defines and creates interactive architecture for a segment of a game, including landscapes buildings and objects, Level Design is necessary for two primary purposes - providing the player with a goal.
Level must stay true to the overall design specification, using the characters and story elements defined by the Game Designer, but the editors often have considerable freedom to vary the specific look and feel of the level which they are responsible.
Concept Artist:
A concept artist designs sketches and images for games or movies that are not in final phase. They create scenery and environment for their game or movie, character design and vehicle design ideas which are usually built on to complete the final build of the characters, vehicles or scenery within the game.
A concept artist would design things like the environment, characters, backgrounds and colour schemes of a video game. Usually these things go from concept to completion when the ideas are presented to the lead artist and the rest of the team and are then built on to make up the final form of the game.
Designer:
The Games Designer is who comes up with what the game will consist of and how the game will play. Mainly defining what the core elements of the game are like. Also it is important for the games designer to communicate regularly with the rest of the development team who are creating different assets and who are writhing the code.
The designer must be able to to work in collaboration with multi disciplinary teams, be able to communicate to artists, programmers, producers, marketing staff, and others involved in the development process.
Producer:
The project manager also known as the producer, is responsible for ensuring the successful delivery of a game, on time and within budget. They control the finances and other resources needed for a project and co-ordinate the work of the production team, making sure that the quality and vision of the game is maintained, whatever problems may arise.
In a publishers environment, Assistant Producers will focus on liaising between sales and marketing departments and the developer, and supporting the work of the publishers external producer.
Producers are expected to be fully aware of what the development team are doing and where they are going as a team.
QA Tester:
QA testers also known as Quality Assurance testers have the job of playing and testing a game before it is released. The goal of a QA tester is to find problems in a game, weather it be a massive game breaking issue, a small annoying bug, or just that the game isn't enjoyable in some aspects.
The job doesn't require any prior experience and in most cases doesn't pay as well as other jobs in the industry. However expect to earn anywhere between £22k and £35k a year.
Despite the job sounding easy, QA testing can be a long and tedious role that gets dull very quick.
Specialist Programmer:
Specialist Programmers require a vast knowledge in multiple different script languages, C, C++, C#, JavaScript, they need to know it all. The more the programmer knows, the better the chances of him/her landing the job.
Programmers can work both full-time and part-time, either being brought onto the team until the project is finished and then being let off, or being hired full time and being given a schedule. Specialist Programmers are often hired full time as companies tend to value the role more.
Programmer
A regular programmer is expected to understand a great deal about a few script languages, specializing in one or two, however they don't need to understand every script language in full detail.
A programmer will likely earn about £20k starting out, but that sum will rise to closer to £40k with experience.
Technical Artist:
The Technical Artist is a relatively new role in the games industry, but is getting more important as hardware in PC's and consoles get more complex.
Technical artists are good at everything in a sense, knowing how to program and how to design elements for a game. This means that a development team can have someone that can bridge the gap between art and programming, a very necessary task.
It is rare for an individual to become very familiar with both the artistic sides of development and the programming side, and for this reason finding a Technical Artist is uncommon.
Associate Producer
As a Publishing Associate Producer in 343 industries, you will work directly with the Executive Producer and the discipline leads on areas such as the projects vision, scope, schedule and playtests.
Sledgehammer games are looking for a top tier Development Manager to take leading role working on the Call of Duty franchise. Candidates must be passionate, focused and driven to excel. Development Managers do a similar job to Associate producers.
Community Manager
A Community Manager is responsible for managing and growing a community as well as building relationships with the fans and partners including media influences, growing excitement and awareness for the studio and portfolio of games.
The skills you will need to become a community manager will include experience on all social media sites as well as video content such as YouTube and live streaming services. You will also need thorough knowledge in the games industry.
Audio Engineer:
The main role of an audio engineer is to write, record, mix, and remake the soundtrack in a video game; this includes but is not limited to music, sound effects, voices and ambient effects. The audio team can consist of any number of people, depending on the size of the company, but in most cases the less people in the audio team means each person must work longer per day.
Audio Engineers are given a sample o the game to get the feel for the environment, similar to a moodboard that a team would give to the artists. Usually a specific genre is given to the audio team for the right idea.
UI Designer:
User interface design in games differs from other UI design because it involves an additional element - fiction. The fiction involves an avatar on the actual user, or player.The player becomes an invisible, but key element to the story, much like a narrator in a novel or film.
Meta is where the UI fits on a 2d hud plane and are normally there to tell the player a certain thing. Like the blood splatter on the screen in Call of Duty to show when the player is hurt. Another example of this is GTA 4 where the players phone will ring and show up in the corner of the screen.
Animator
An animator has the job to move an element in a game, it can be simple like a low-poly person walking, such as the protagonist in N+, or complex like the face animations on LA Noir. Its a difficult job in most cases, however if a game is small and has few moving parts, the animators job gets easier, it all depends on the scale of the project.
Animators are required to have the ability to animate complex sprites and to work long hours on the job. They can expect to earn around £25k when starting out, but that sum rises to £32k+ depending on how much experience you have.
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