Game jobs and what they do
If you’re wanting to break into the games industry, today’s top studios are always looking for talent. The catch, of course, is that you’re not the only gamer who would love to work on the next Call of Duty. One of the first steps to getting your dream job is getting familiar with the variety of roles studios look for. While today’s AAA games require way too many job positions to list here, we’ve broken down a few of the most common so you can get a general understanding of what each does, skills needed, etc.
As any artist knows it’s usually much faster to previs a project in 2D before jumping full-tilt into 3D. For that reason, concept artists work closely with art directors to come up with the overall look of the game.
Usually a concept artist is given a brief, which provides a general explanation of what something should look like. For example, a brief may state that the characters in a game are going to be "space marines".
Games from Halo to Call of Duty are filled with space marines, and yet they each have their own unique look and feel. So what exactly do the characters look like? What sort of environments do they live in? These are all types of things a concept artist is tasked with figuring out through a series of concepts.
To be a concept artist, you’ll need a strong knowledge of sketching and painting tools like Photoshop or Sketchbook Pro. In addition, a lot of AAA concept artists incorporate some sort of 3D into their concepts to speed up their workflows.
Check out our three-part interview with AAA concept studio One Pixel Brush’s owner where he explains in-depth what it takes to be a concept artist.
What you should learn…
Photoshop or SketchBook or Corel Painter
Maya (or an equivalent 3D program)
Peek into how a professional does it with Rapid Concept Illustration for AAA Productions in Photoshop
If you want to be an environment artist, you’ll need to be able to take the concepts for an environment and translate them into a beautifully crafted 3D scene ready to bring into an engine. Since games are interactive, players can access almost every area of your environment, so an attention to detail is always important.
Generally speaking, most studios will require you to move the environments you’re assigned from concept to completion. This means you’ll need to know every step of a 3D pipeline, from modeling and texturing to bringing your final assets into a game engine.
All games have a poly and texture budget, so you’ll need to be able to work within those budgets. This means having a thorough understanding of how to take high-resolution models and textures and lowering them with various texture maps and/or retopology techniques.
What you should learn…
Photoshop
Maya or 3ds Max (or something similar)
ZBrush or Mudbox
Peek into how a professional does it with Sculpting a Stylized Game Environment in ZBrush and 3ds Max
Just as environment artists are tasked with taking an environment from concept to completion, as a character artist you’ll be required to take characters designed by a concept artist and turn them into game-ready 3D models.
This means having a thorough understanding of high and low poly modeling workflows as well as texturing techniques to bring your model to life while staying under the poly count and texture budgets for your game.
Since you could be modeling just about any type of character, you’ll need to be flexible in your knowledge and skills. This means knowing modeling techniques for a wide range of objects and being able to figure out how to model just about anything with good topology.
You’ll need to have a thorough understanding of any industry standard modeling software, and a willingness to learn new ways to troubleshoot problems.
What you should learn…
Photoshop
Maya or 3ds Max (or something similar)
ZBrush or Mudbox
Peek into how a professional does it with Game Character Creation in 3ds Max and ZBrush
The role of a game designer is to come up with and then help develop the rules of a game. As you might imagine, this incredibly important role requires a ton of knowledge of what makes a successful game. Essentially, it’s up to you to make sure the gameplay is successful.
For example, you're likely to be responsible for creating features, scripting missions and balancing the gameplay.
It’s not always up to you to do everything however. While you’ll do your fair share of creation, most major studios require you to be able to work with everyone from art teams to programmers in order to implement your ideas. A lot of studios will also want you to create a prototype for getting your gameplay ideas across to other teams who can refine and build on the it.
What you should learn…
Python or Lua (or similar scripting languages)
Unreal Engine or Unity (or similar game engines)
Peek into how a professional does it with Creating a Game Concept and Design Document
Your job as a level designer is to assemble all of the assets created by the art team and place them in the game level. For instance, an environment artist would make all of the assets you need for the level, but it’s ultimately up to you to build the level in such a way that it delivers the desired experience for the player.
You’ll need to work closely with the game designer to make sure the gameplay experience matches their vision.
The Assassin’s Creed games are a great example of solid level design. Since the gameplay allows players to climb and jump from just about any asset to another, it’s up to the level designer to make sure everything in is placed in such a way that the player is able to make their way through the level. After all, it wouldn’t be a fun game if you were supposed to reach an object in a window that was blocked by a tree.
To be a successful level designer, you’ll need a good understanding of gameplay mechanics and game design rules as well as what it takes to implement those inside of whatever game engine your studio uses. This usually means quite a bit of scripting and/or programming as well.
What you should learn…
3ds Max or Maya (or similar 3D program, assuming your game is in 3D)
Python or Lua (or similar scripting languages)
C++ or C# (or similar programming languages)
Unreal Engine or Unity (or similar game engines)
Peek into how a professional does it with Unity Mobile Game Development: Level Design
Being a technical artist can mean different things depending on the studio. You might be asked to build character rigs, work as an FX artist to create dynamics for the game or work as a bridge between the programmers and artists to build pipeline tools.
A lot of what you’ll need to do depends on the size of the studio, but as the title suggests you’ll need a balance of technical and artistic skills.
While you’re not going to be working as a full-time programmer in the engine, you’ll need to be able to take the assets from artists and build the tools to make them work in the game engine. As you might imagine, this means you’ll need a strong scripting/programming background. That’s the technical side.
The artistic side comes from being able to take assets created by art teams and making them functional in the game. A big portion of this often means making sure the assets fit within required budgets.
For example, an environment artist might make a great game-ready asset. However, once the level designer decides a certain level needs a hundred instances of the asset then suddenly someone will need to figure out how to keep these additions from destroying the game’s frame rate. As the technical artist, you’ll need to either fix it or work with the artist to get it fixed.
This means you’ll need to work in your studio’s 3D application (e.g., 3ds Max or Maya), Photoshop and any other creative tools your studio may be using.
What you should learn…
Python and MEL/MaxScript (depending on your studio’s 3D application)
C++ and/or C# (or similar programming languages)
HLSL (or similar shading language)
Peek at how a professional does it with Multiphase Boss Battle in Unity
When an artist builds an asset, such as a character, it’s built as a static object. As an animator, your job is to bring it to life! While animation isn’t something that’s unique to games, there is a difference between animating for games and movies.
You’ll need to have a thorough understanding of a 3D application like Maya and how to incorporate the 12 Principles of Animation. Some studios ask their animators to help with more technical tasks. For example, if you’re a technical animator you might be asked to rig characters or even help develop animation tools.
Even if you’re working for a studio that doesn’t require rigging or technical skills, at the very least you should strive to round out your skillset with some rigging knowledge or even some basic modeling skills. This’ll help you become a better team player, locate issues and how to resolve them.
What you should learn…
Maya or 3ds Max
Python and MEL/MaxScript (depending on your studio’s 3D application)
Peek into how a professional does it with Creating Game Combat Animations in Maya
There’s two primary elements to this role. The first is as a user interface (UI) artist. When you’re working as a UI artist, you’ll need to make sure your game’s front-end interface such as the in-game HUD fit the game’s style while still being something that functions well.
On the other hand, a user experience (UX or UE) artist (or designer) takes the UI and makes sure it’s functionality is seamless and intuitive. Being a UX artist is a lot like being a motion designer who needs to also have the skills of making those moving designs and having them be functional.
Even though there’s a big difference in the work required, there’s also a lot of overlap between these two roles. Sometimes studios even bundle the roles together into a single job.
Regardless of which one you’re doing, the end result of a UI/UX artist is developing an experience that fits within the game’s style while being intuitive for the player.
What you should learn…
Photoshop
Illustrator
After Effects or Flash
Maya or 3ds Max (or similar 3D application)
Unreal Engine or Unity (or whatever game engine your studio is using)
Peek at how a professional does it with Creating UI Elements for Games in Unity
When you’re working as an FX artist you’ll be responsible for creating simulations such as particle systems for your game. Sometimes called a VFX artist like its feature film counterpart role, the key difference between creating VFX for games and VFX for movies is being able to create them for a real-time game engine.
As simple as this sounds, building real-time FX introduces a whole new level of complexity. For example, there really isn’t any compositing in games and most games let players move around freely, so you’ll need to make sure any FX look great from any angle.
Couple those challenges with the limitations that come with runtime effects and it’s obvious why as an FX artist you’ll need strong technical knowledge of particle systems and troubleshooting skills for when things don’t go as you’d expect.
What you should learn…
Maya or 3ds Max (or similar 3D application)
Houdini
Photoshop
Python (or similar scripting/programming languages)
Unreal Engine or Unity (or whatever game engine your studio is using)
Peek into how a professional does it with Introduction to Particle Systems in Unreal Engine
If you’ve ever dreamt in lines of code, being a game programmer might be the role for you. As a game programmer, you’ll be responsible for taking the assets and designs and getting it all to work in the game engine.
Some studios refer to this role as a gameplay programmer because your primary responsibility will be focusing on the gameplay functionality. Additionally, some studios might even focus the role on a specific engine. For example, you could specialize as a Unity game programmer.
As you might imagine, this means you’ll need a strong background in math and programming for whatever language your game engine requires. You’ll also need a good understanding of physics, AI, the desired gameplay mechanics and being able to debug your code.
What you should learn…
Note: The languages you should focus on may vary depending on the programming language for your studio’s engine.
C++, C#, Perl, Python, Java, etc.
Unreal Engine or Unity (or whatever game engine your studio is using)
Peek into how a professional does it withCreating Gameplay Systems Using Blueprint Features in Unreal Engine
Most good games need artificial intelligence to challenge the player, so your role as an AI programmer is to develop functionality for just about any game element that’s not controlled by the player. This includes things like NPCs and enemy actions.
As with any programming position, you’ll need an understanding of math and physics as well as being able to optimize your code. You can also expect plenty of troubleshooting as the QA department will be reporting any bugs they find in the AI.
What you should learn…
Note: The languages you should focus on may vary depending on the programming language for your studio’s engine.
C++, C#, Perl, Python, Java, etc.
Unreal Engine or Unity (or whatever game engine your studio is using)
Peek into how a professional does it with 2D Racing Game Series in Unity: Volume 4
- Concept Artist
- Narrative Designer
- Environment Artist
- Character Artist
- Game Designer
- Level Designer
- Technical Artist
- Animator
- Art Director
- UI Artist
- FX Artist
- Game Programmer
- AI Programmer
- Pipeline Tools Programmer
- QA
- Online Software Engineer
- Network Administrator
Concept Artist
As any artist knows it’s usually much faster to previs a project in 2D before jumping full-tilt into 3D. For that reason, concept artists work closely with art directors to come up with the overall look of the game.
Usually a concept artist is given a brief, which provides a general explanation of what something should look like. For example, a brief may state that the characters in a game are going to be "space marines".
Games from Halo to Call of Duty are filled with space marines, and yet they each have their own unique look and feel. So what exactly do the characters look like? What sort of environments do they live in? These are all types of things a concept artist is tasked with figuring out through a series of concepts.
To be a concept artist, you’ll need a strong knowledge of sketching and painting tools like Photoshop or Sketchbook Pro. In addition, a lot of AAA concept artists incorporate some sort of 3D into their concepts to speed up their workflows.
Check out our three-part interview with AAA concept studio One Pixel Brush’s owner where he explains in-depth what it takes to be a concept artist.
What you should learn…
Photoshop or SketchBook or Corel Painter
Maya (or an equivalent 3D program)
Peek into how a professional does it with Rapid Concept Illustration for AAA Productions in Photoshop
Narrative Designer
When you’re working as a narrative designer you’ll be in charge of in-game narrative experiences. Most major studios also have other individuals who work with the narrative designer on the story, such as a story experience director and/or a scriptwriter. Since a game’s story isn’t always linear like a film, you’ll need to work closely with other members of your team to make sure the story unfolds as expected. This means you’ll need to have an extensive knowledge of not only what the story is, but how it can best be implemented for the player. For example, where do you take away control from the player to advance the story with a cut scene? Where do you throw in narbs to help push the story along? While you obviously need professional writing skills to be a narrative designer, a lot of studios call on their narrative designers to help with some unexpected things. For example, some studios like Bungie want you to have scripting knowledge for debugging purposes while others, like Ubisoft, want you to be able to oversee things like casting and voice recording sessions to make sure they push the story forward.Environment Artist
If you want to be an environment artist, you’ll need to be able to take the concepts for an environment and translate them into a beautifully crafted 3D scene ready to bring into an engine. Since games are interactive, players can access almost every area of your environment, so an attention to detail is always important.
Generally speaking, most studios will require you to move the environments you’re assigned from concept to completion. This means you’ll need to know every step of a 3D pipeline, from modeling and texturing to bringing your final assets into a game engine.
All games have a poly and texture budget, so you’ll need to be able to work within those budgets. This means having a thorough understanding of how to take high-resolution models and textures and lowering them with various texture maps and/or retopology techniques.
What you should learn…
Photoshop
Maya or 3ds Max (or something similar)
ZBrush or Mudbox
Peek into how a professional does it with Sculpting a Stylized Game Environment in ZBrush and 3ds Max
Character Artist
Just as environment artists are tasked with taking an environment from concept to completion, as a character artist you’ll be required to take characters designed by a concept artist and turn them into game-ready 3D models.
This means having a thorough understanding of high and low poly modeling workflows as well as texturing techniques to bring your model to life while staying under the poly count and texture budgets for your game.
Since you could be modeling just about any type of character, you’ll need to be flexible in your knowledge and skills. This means knowing modeling techniques for a wide range of objects and being able to figure out how to model just about anything with good topology.
You’ll need to have a thorough understanding of any industry standard modeling software, and a willingness to learn new ways to troubleshoot problems.
What you should learn…
Photoshop
Maya or 3ds Max (or something similar)
ZBrush or Mudbox
Peek into how a professional does it with Game Character Creation in 3ds Max and ZBrush
Game Designer
The role of a game designer is to come up with and then help develop the rules of a game. As you might imagine, this incredibly important role requires a ton of knowledge of what makes a successful game. Essentially, it’s up to you to make sure the gameplay is successful.
For example, you're likely to be responsible for creating features, scripting missions and balancing the gameplay.
It’s not always up to you to do everything however. While you’ll do your fair share of creation, most major studios require you to be able to work with everyone from art teams to programmers in order to implement your ideas. A lot of studios will also want you to create a prototype for getting your gameplay ideas across to other teams who can refine and build on the it.
What you should learn…
Python or Lua (or similar scripting languages)
Unreal Engine or Unity (or similar game engines)
Peek into how a professional does it with Creating a Game Concept and Design Document
Level Designer
Your job as a level designer is to assemble all of the assets created by the art team and place them in the game level. For instance, an environment artist would make all of the assets you need for the level, but it’s ultimately up to you to build the level in such a way that it delivers the desired experience for the player.
You’ll need to work closely with the game designer to make sure the gameplay experience matches their vision.
The Assassin’s Creed games are a great example of solid level design. Since the gameplay allows players to climb and jump from just about any asset to another, it’s up to the level designer to make sure everything in is placed in such a way that the player is able to make their way through the level. After all, it wouldn’t be a fun game if you were supposed to reach an object in a window that was blocked by a tree.
To be a successful level designer, you’ll need a good understanding of gameplay mechanics and game design rules as well as what it takes to implement those inside of whatever game engine your studio uses. This usually means quite a bit of scripting and/or programming as well.
What you should learn…
3ds Max or Maya (or similar 3D program, assuming your game is in 3D)
Python or Lua (or similar scripting languages)
C++ or C# (or similar programming languages)
Unreal Engine or Unity (or similar game engines)
Peek into how a professional does it with Unity Mobile Game Development: Level Design
Technical Artist
Being a technical artist can mean different things depending on the studio. You might be asked to build character rigs, work as an FX artist to create dynamics for the game or work as a bridge between the programmers and artists to build pipeline tools.
A lot of what you’ll need to do depends on the size of the studio, but as the title suggests you’ll need a balance of technical and artistic skills.
While you’re not going to be working as a full-time programmer in the engine, you’ll need to be able to take the assets from artists and build the tools to make them work in the game engine. As you might imagine, this means you’ll need a strong scripting/programming background. That’s the technical side.
The artistic side comes from being able to take assets created by art teams and making them functional in the game. A big portion of this often means making sure the assets fit within required budgets.
For example, an environment artist might make a great game-ready asset. However, once the level designer decides a certain level needs a hundred instances of the asset then suddenly someone will need to figure out how to keep these additions from destroying the game’s frame rate. As the technical artist, you’ll need to either fix it or work with the artist to get it fixed.
This means you’ll need to work in your studio’s 3D application (e.g., 3ds Max or Maya), Photoshop and any other creative tools your studio may be using.
What you should learn…
Python and MEL/MaxScript (depending on your studio’s 3D application)
C++ and/or C# (or similar programming languages)
HLSL (or similar shading language)
Peek at how a professional does it with Multiphase Boss Battle in Unity
Animator
When an artist builds an asset, such as a character, it’s built as a static object. As an animator, your job is to bring it to life! While animation isn’t something that’s unique to games, there is a difference between animating for games and movies.
You’ll need to have a thorough understanding of a 3D application like Maya and how to incorporate the 12 Principles of Animation. Some studios ask their animators to help with more technical tasks. For example, if you’re a technical animator you might be asked to rig characters or even help develop animation tools.
Even if you’re working for a studio that doesn’t require rigging or technical skills, at the very least you should strive to round out your skillset with some rigging knowledge or even some basic modeling skills. This’ll help you become a better team player, locate issues and how to resolve them.
What you should learn…
Maya or 3ds Max
Python and MEL/MaxScript (depending on your studio’s 3D application)
Peek into how a professional does it with Creating Game Combat Animations in Maya
Art Director
By the time you’re ready to work as an art director, chances are you’ll already know what the job entails. This is because most art directors, especially for AAA games, don’t jump into the job without any prior experience. With that said, your role as an art director is to make sure all of the art in the game meets the game’s vision and quality goals. This means you’ll need to not only define your game’s artistic style but work closely with the entire art team to make sure their art fulfills that style. You’ll also need to work with technical teams to make sure the art being generated by the game still fits within the game’s artistic direction. What you should learn… Maya or 3ds Max Photoshop Unreal Engine or Unity (or whatever game engine your studio is using)UI/UX/UE Artist
There’s two primary elements to this role. The first is as a user interface (UI) artist. When you’re working as a UI artist, you’ll need to make sure your game’s front-end interface such as the in-game HUD fit the game’s style while still being something that functions well.
On the other hand, a user experience (UX or UE) artist (or designer) takes the UI and makes sure it’s functionality is seamless and intuitive. Being a UX artist is a lot like being a motion designer who needs to also have the skills of making those moving designs and having them be functional.
Even though there’s a big difference in the work required, there’s also a lot of overlap between these two roles. Sometimes studios even bundle the roles together into a single job.
Regardless of which one you’re doing, the end result of a UI/UX artist is developing an experience that fits within the game’s style while being intuitive for the player.
What you should learn…
Photoshop
Illustrator
After Effects or Flash
Maya or 3ds Max (or similar 3D application)
Unreal Engine or Unity (or whatever game engine your studio is using)
Peek at how a professional does it with Creating UI Elements for Games in Unity
FX Artist
When you’re working as an FX artist you’ll be responsible for creating simulations such as particle systems for your game. Sometimes called a VFX artist like its feature film counterpart role, the key difference between creating VFX for games and VFX for movies is being able to create them for a real-time game engine.
As simple as this sounds, building real-time FX introduces a whole new level of complexity. For example, there really isn’t any compositing in games and most games let players move around freely, so you’ll need to make sure any FX look great from any angle.
Couple those challenges with the limitations that come with runtime effects and it’s obvious why as an FX artist you’ll need strong technical knowledge of particle systems and troubleshooting skills for when things don’t go as you’d expect.
What you should learn…
Maya or 3ds Max (or similar 3D application)
Houdini
Photoshop
Python (or similar scripting/programming languages)
Unreal Engine or Unity (or whatever game engine your studio is using)
Peek into how a professional does it with Introduction to Particle Systems in Unreal Engine
Game Programmer
If you’ve ever dreamt in lines of code, being a game programmer might be the role for you. As a game programmer, you’ll be responsible for taking the assets and designs and getting it all to work in the game engine.
Some studios refer to this role as a gameplay programmer because your primary responsibility will be focusing on the gameplay functionality. Additionally, some studios might even focus the role on a specific engine. For example, you could specialize as a Unity game programmer.
As you might imagine, this means you’ll need a strong background in math and programming for whatever language your game engine requires. You’ll also need a good understanding of physics, AI, the desired gameplay mechanics and being able to debug your code.
What you should learn…
Note: The languages you should focus on may vary depending on the programming language for your studio’s engine.
C++, C#, Perl, Python, Java, etc.
Unreal Engine or Unity (or whatever game engine your studio is using)
Peek into how a professional does it withCreating Gameplay Systems Using Blueprint Features in Unreal Engine
AI Programmer
Most good games need artificial intelligence to challenge the player, so your role as an AI programmer is to develop functionality for just about any game element that’s not controlled by the player. This includes things like NPCs and enemy actions.
As with any programming position, you’ll need an understanding of math and physics as well as being able to optimize your code. You can also expect plenty of troubleshooting as the QA department will be reporting any bugs they find in the AI.
What you should learn…
Note: The languages you should focus on may vary depending on the programming language for your studio’s engine.
C++, C#, Perl, Python, Java, etc.
Unreal Engine or Unity (or whatever game engine your studio is using)
Peek into how a professional does it with 2D Racing Game Series in Unity: Volume 4
