Are you looking for a good Technical Artist but are finding it difficult to recruit one? Have you relied on personnel selection companies but have not had the expected results?
In this article we explain who this figure is and what he/she does and the advantages of turning to Ricercamy as a partner in the search and selection of profiles in the IT sector.
In order to understand who the Technical Artist is and what he/she does, it is important to explain the working context in which this role is inserted. We are definitely talking about the gaming industry.
In Italy, the video game industry is experiencing strong growth, having reached a total value of 2.2 billion euros in 2020. The sector posted a +21.9% last year compared to 2019, thanks to the outbreak of the pandemic that increased the demand for entertainment. This was revealed today by a research carried out by Censis in collaboration with IIDEA (Italian Interactive Digital Entertainment Association), the industry association in our country.
As revealed by the Censis and IIDEA research, the video game industry in Italy can count on 160 companies employing 1,600 people (79% of whom are under 36 years old) and a turnover of 90 million euros. According to Censis forecasts, investing 45 million euros in gaming over five years (the amount provided by the NRP under the heading of financing digital service platforms for developers and cultural enterprises) would increase the turnover of Italian companies in the sector to 357 million euros in 2026. Such an intervention would create 1,000 qualified jobs for young people in five years and would activate a total of 360 million private investments, for 81 million in additional tax revenues.
In this context of rapid expansion towards this industry, it is necessary to identify Italian talent that is most often forced to go to countries like the UK, Germany or Sweden where the gaming industry is very powerful.
In fact, the time has come to develop the video game industry in our country. The data confirms how much Italians are passionate and assiduous consumers of video games. The added value we bring to the national level, also in an economic sense, is now a solid reality. What is missing, however, is local production, which gives meaning to the sector’s turnover, of which Italian developers make up too small a portion.
In order to better understand in which context and with which other departments the Technical Artist works within the gaming industry, we present here a map with other professional roles that interact daily with him, in order to have a more global vision of the role and its functions.
Who is and what does the Technical Artist do?
Technical Artists (TA) facilitate the work of artists. They develop the game engines, so that they work best for people with a more artistic eye. If an artist wants to create something complex, TAs will tell them if it is technically possible and think of the best way to do it. In some studios, where the animation team needs complex rigging (creating a moving skeleton), they may call in the TAs to do it. They act as a bridge between the artists and the programmers.
This role is usually either a programmer who really appreciates what the artist is doing or an artist who has very good technical skills. Their responsibility is to make sure that artists have all the software and tools they need to generate an artistic production. So they speak an artist’s language but with technical skills to give them what they need.
What is a technical artist good at?
Supporting others: serving the needs of the art department and making sure artists have the tools they need to do their job
Problem-solving: identifying potential problems, finding solutions to art-related problems
Programming: diagnosing software problems, understanding game engines, workflows and graphics rendering, and developing them to work more effectively
Communication: listen to artists and programmers, explain and write clear reports
Art: understand each of the main art disciplines. Assistants cannot provide support or tools if they do not understand the process.
Responsibilities and Requirements of the Role
The responsibilities associated with this position are:
Create new performance technologies to realise the Art Director’s vision and to meet project requirements – these technologies are varied and often require the use of a combination of skills.
Experience in creating shaders for a wide variety of applications.
Creation of a variety of high-performance particle effects for environmental and UI applications.
Creation and/or implementation of environment, UI and character animations.
Being responsible for game performance, including frame-rate, memory usage, start-up time and track size, and advising the team on the best way to build optimal assets.
Create tools for the Unity editor to improve the workflow of the art team.
Maintain a holistic understanding of all aspects of the technical art of a project, including the rendering pipeline, asset loading/unloading, UI structure and flow, etc.
Maintain asset discipline within the team (ensuring naming conventions, folder structure, asset size guidelines, etc. are adhered to).
Requirements
Previous experience as a technical artist in the games industry
Previous experience working on mobile titles
Experience in the professional use of Unity with a strong understanding of how to get the most out of the engine for mobile platforms
Experience creating custom shaders
Experience with scripting
Experience with 3D packages
Experience with Photoshop
Experience in creating high performance particle effects for mobile platforms, preferably in Unity
Environmental animation skills – UI and character animation/rigging skills are desirable but not essential
Strong C# script writing skills
Experience creating custom editor tools
The profile is obviously completed by important soft skills, such as: aptitude for team work, proactivity and creativity, good organisational skills and result orientation.
In the IT sector there is strong competition on the market and speed in contacting them and a study of salaries are the bases for optimising a selection process.
Ricercamy, a revolutionary and dynamic head hunter, born in March 2012, has, since its inception, been committed to introducing innovative elements into the world of Search and Selection that would improve the redemption of Recruiting activities.
According to a study by Linkedin, 75% of talents are passive and already working, not proactively looking for new professional opportunities. Only 25% of them are more consistently interested in actively searching for new job offers. Therefore, investing the company’s budget in subscriptions and/or offers from job posting platforms cannot be the only effective solution.
It is necessary to adopt a methodology that allows us to reach the best candidates: headhunting calls!
This is how our specialised headhunters find qualified staff for our clients.
Our consultants’ anonymous calls are able to intercept any profile with different seniorities.
Through a very thorough and technical telephone pre-screening, in addition to the personal data, we collect all the specifications on the candidate’s experience necessary to assess its validity and thus allow the candidate to access the next step.
All of the above is carried out and shared in real time via a cloud file in which it is possible to work hand in hand with the client company’s human resources representative, who does not have to wait 2-3 weeks to receive the first shortlist of valid profiles, but just a few hours!
Transparency and immediate sharing is a distinctive trait of Ricercamy, which has specialised over the years in the search and selection of technical figures in the IT field, thanks to the development of specific skills and knowledge of the profiles sought and the reference market.
By searching for personnel on a daily basis, our headhunters have acquired know-how and specialisation in their sectors, which allows us to be leaders in this market crowded with recruiters.
On the strength of our tools, since its inception, Ricercamy has helped from the smallest IT Start-Ups, to the large IT Colossi in the selection of qualified personnel who are difficult to find and to place. Thanks to our SMART commercial offer, our clients ask us to carry out selections that they have always tended to do internally, but since we have certain costs and do not provide completion fees or exclusivity, they feel free to delegate to us the management of their vacancies, or those more difficult or repetitive activities, thus lightening their workload.
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Make an appointment with one of our consultants by clicking here.
Martina Frangiolini
HR Consultant
Ricercamy
