Prop Artist

Prop or asset artists are the people who are responsible for making game assets. These can, but usually do not include the more complex ones such as vehicles or weapons.When creating assets they use different workflows, most commonly the “High to Lowpoly baking” workflow, especially in the more specialised Weapon Specialisation.

However, this changes depending on the amount of them, especially working in an outsource studio. In these situations you will work with other workflows that don’t work with unique data. For bigger open world you will more likely work with blending existing tileables together. For example like the FarCry games.Another example that deviates from the traditional baking workflow are vehicles. Especially larger ones will most likely use the Midpoly workflow, which stacks tileable information together with decals on bits of floating geometry to make their surfaces. As seen in Star Citizen for example.

All of these assets created are then added to the game engine. Where they can be used by Level Artist and Cinematic artists to build their worlds, locations and cinematics out of. Depending on the size of the studio you may also be responsible for the placement and implementation of these assets as well as the creation of materials. Which often times happens at smaller sized studios.

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Create standalone and modular environment assets varying in scale and complexity

Work closely with Leads to set standards for assets and asset creation.

Ability to work from concept art and adapt to new and evolving toolsets.

Communicate and problem solve to ensure your work finishes on time, while elevating any scope issues to managers.

Collaborate with team members and leads to evaluate and improve workflows to meet the goals of the project.

Work closely with team members and contribute to a healthy workplace and working conditions

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Your daily routine consists of creating standalone assets and sometimes modular ones as well. Both of these can vary in scale. smaller to bigger assets using a variety of different workflows.When doing so you will be spending most of your time modelling, unwrapping and optimising before exporting it. After this you will then bake and texture this asset inside of common texturing programs. And for the final step you’re taking this asset into the game engine to verify and implement it for everyone else to use.

You will also have regular meetings and feedback from other artists and your lead artist.

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Your close collaborations will be other prop artists first and foremost. Getting feedback in regular meetings from your peers and art directors is going to be a very common thing.Other than this you will also be collaborating with Concept Artists to make sure that the references and concept art you get provided are followed on and potentially can be improved upon as well.

The same will occasionally happen with Level Design and Technical Art as well, making sure that the technical aspects of the game assets you’ve created fulfil the needs of the project. Lastly, you may be working with Lighting and VFX artists on certain occasions to implement effects of lighting on assets when required.

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