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Job Description

A Technical Artist is the key bridge between artists and engineers, and Horizon Worlds is currently looking for a passionate team member to specialize in creating cutting-edge real-time vegetation and foliage systems. You will work closely with a small team to build efficient, high-quality trees, plants, and foliage assets that bring natural environments to life across our Horizon Worlds platform while maintaining optimal performance on VR devices.

Technical Artist, Reality Labs Responsibilities:

• Partner closely with engineering and design teams to develop realistic vegetation systems across a range of VR devices with strict performance constraints

• Design and implement efficient real-time foliage systems using SpeedTree and Houdini for procedural generation, optimization, and asset creation

• Develop and optimize vegetation shaders including translucency effects, vertex animation systems, and wind simulation for natural plant movement

• Build procedural tools in Houdini to generate diverse plant libraries, terrain systems, and biome-specific foliage collections

• Optimize performance through LOD systems, draw call reduction, texture atlasing, vertex data compression, and mobile VR-specific techniques

• Develop tools to streamline artist workflows for vegetation data authoring, vertex painting systems, and asset validation

• Collaborate with artists and engineers to solve complex technical challenges related to vegetation rendering, instancing, and real-time performance

We are a company committed to creating diverse and inclusive environments where people can bring their full, authentic selves to work every day. We are an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer that believes everyone matters. Qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment regardless of their race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, marital status, national origin, ancestry, genetic factors, age, disability, protected veteran status, military or uniformed service member status, or any other status or characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations, and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or recruiting process, please send a request to [email protected] learn more about how we collect, keep, and process your private information, please review Insight Global's Workforce Privacy Policy: https://insightglobal.com/workforce-privacy-policy/.

Skills and Requirements

• Experience developing real-time vegetation systems for games or VR applications with demonstrable performance optimization knowledge

• Professional experience with SpeedTree for tree and foliage creation, including asset optimization and game engine integration

• Expert-level knowledge of Houdini for procedural vegetation generation, including HDAs, node-based workflows, and asset pipeline integration

• Experience with vegetation-specific optimization techniques including LOD systems, vertex animation, alpha-to-coverage, and VR performance constraints

• Expertise with vegetation-to-game engine pipelines for real-time applications

• Experience with vertex data optimization including vertex color channels, UV layout strategies, and memory-efficient asset preparation

• Knowledge of shaders and rendering techniques including translucency, subsurface scattering, and wind animation systems

• Experience collaborating on multi-disciplinary teams with strong communication skills for technical and artistic feedback • Experience developing vegetation systems for VR headsets with knowledge of mobile rendering constraints and foveated rendering techniques

• Advanced Houdini skills including custom VEX/Python scripting for tools and procedural asset generation workflows

• Deep knowledge of real-time rendering engines (Unity/Unreal) with specific expertise in vegetation instancing and batching systems

• Experience with procedural biome generation and large-scale environment creation using Houdini and game engine tools

• Knowledge of vegetation physics systems including collision detection, interactive foliage, and player interaction systems

• Understanding of mobile VR performance optimization including draw call budgets, texture memory constraints, and 72fps target optimization

• Portfolio demonstrating vegetation art with examples of tools, shaders, and optimized real-time vegetation systems