The technical artist

A technical artist (TA) works where art meets engineering. Larian Studios' job advert puts the role in one line: "Act as interlocutor between the art and the programming team" (Hitmarker job listing: Technical Artist). In practice that means shaders, tools, pipelines and performance: the parts of game art that are as much about how something runs as how it looks.

The roles in 3D game production page gives a short working definition. This page looks at how studios and technical artists themselves describe the job.

#What the job involves

Jodie Azhar, Lead Technical Artist on Creative Assembly's Total War series, summed up her team's work before her GDC 2018 talk: "we solve a range of problems within tool development; art optimization; art asset generation" (gdconf.com: Speaker Q&A: Jodie Azhar advocates…). She adds that "The role of Technical Artists is all about problem solving" (gdconf.com: Speaker Q&A: Jodie Azhar advocates…).

Larian's advert for a technical artist in Barcelona breaks the same idea into duties (Hitmarker job listing: Technical Artist):

"Provide technical follow-up to the art team in regards to performance and guidelines."
"Design and develop new art pipeline tools with a strong focus on usability and efficiency."
"Design, implement and optimize shaders while meeting artistic and technical requirements."
Mentor junior team members.

Grouped by area, the work usually falls into four areas:

Area	Typical tasks	Handbook pages
Shaders and materials	Master materials, layered materials, foliage and water shaders	shaders for artists, master materials and instances, material layers and Substrate
Tools and automation	Scripts and plugins that remove repetitive work	procedural modeling, the game asset pipeline
Pipeline	Import and export rules, naming, folder structure, validation	naming conventions, export checklist, source control for artists
Performance	Budgets, profiling, guidelines for artists	performance and profiling, draw calls, overdraw

Tools and automation in practice. Part of Isaac Oster's Unreal Editor Utility Widget: this section calls the AnimToTexture plugin to bake each animation into textures, after earlier sections have created the static mesh and material instance. One button replaces a chain of manual steps. See vertex animation textures.Isaac Oster, via ArtStation Always load external media on this site

#Examples from shipped games

Technical art is often invisible in final screenshots, but breakdowns by environment artists show where it sits.

One of the Substance Designer templates Johns made so other artists could build and bake trims to the shared layout. The template, not any single asset, is the deliverable: it is how one person's pipeline work reaches a whole team.Matthew Trevelyan Johns, via ArtStation Always load external media on this site

One atlas recoloured through the seasons from a greyscale channel and Designer-made LUTs. The leaf shapes stay the same and only the colour lookup changes; making that lookup work in the engine was the technical artists' part.Théophile Lebeau, via ArtStation Always load external media on this site

At Santa Monica Studio, environment artist and level lead Sukru Gilman told 80 Level in 2016 that "our Tech Artists are creating custom tools from lighting, scripts and plugins" (80 Level: What Do Artists Do in Santa Monica Studio?).

#Skills studios ask for

Larian's advert asks for (Hitmarker job listing: Technical Artist):

"Experience in high-level coding languages (Python, C#, etc.) with an understanding of code architecture".
"An understanding of mathematics, including trigonometry and linear algebra".
Shader development "with a strong understanding of the Physically Based Rendering (PBR) pipeline". See physically based rendering.
A solid understanding of the content creation pipeline, from high and low-poly modeling to unwrapping.
Nice to have: HLSL, plus Maya, Houdini, Substance Designer and Painter.

The content-pipeline requirement means a TA is expected to understand the artists' own work as well as code.

#How the role has been defined at GDC

GDC's Technical Artist Bootcamp has run since at least 2011, and Azhar's 2018 talk was part of it (GameDev.net: Tech Artist Bootcamp and Interviews; gdconf.com: Speaker Q&A: Jodie Azhar advocates…; GDC Vault: Technical Artist Bootcamp). The 2011 edition was organised by Jeff Hanna of Volition with other technical artists, to educate "instructors, studio management and other technical artists about the role of TAs and the skills needed to be proficient in this field" (GameDev.net: Tech Artist Bootcamp and Interviews). Its talks give a sense of the range (GameDev.net: Tech Artist Bootcamp and Interviews):

Scott Goffman, "Making Tools Your Artists Will Use"
Rob Galanakis, "Ending The Culture War"
Adam Pletcher, "Tech Art and Databases"
Bronwen Grimes (Valve), "Shader Techniques in Portal 2"

Accompanying interviews add personal views. Ben Cloward (BioWare Austin) describes how a TA can solve large problems or automate complex tasks quickly through scripting, freeing time for creative work (GameDev.net: Tech Artist Bootcamp and Interviews). Craig Goodman (Insomniac Games) argues TAs must be "broadly educated, perpetually asking questions about the world and always learning" (GameDev.net: Tech Artist Bootcamp and Interviews).

Azhar's 2018 point is that the field grew from "the space between creative thinkers and technical thinkers", so teams often lacked "a shared vocabulary" or "a formal way of doing things" (gdconf.com: Speaker Q&A: Jodie Azhar advocates…).

Different viewsProgrammer first or artist first?

Programming matters most. Rob Galanakis (CCP Games) stresses the importance of programming and says a TA must learn to be "ruthless" in improving the production environment (GameDev.net: Tech Artist Bootcamp and Interviews). Larian's advert puts code architecture and linear algebra in its requirements (Hitmarker job listing: Technical Artist).

Breadth and flexibility matter most. Craig Goodman stresses broad education and constant learning, and Bronwen Grimes argues for "flexibility in both education and job structure" (GameDev.net: Tech Artist Bootcamp and Interviews). Azhar describes her own team's work as diverse, with each project needing a different level of support (gdconf.com: Speaker Q&A: Jodie Azhar advocates…).

Avoiding overengineering. Azhar warns that "Overengineering a solution can do more harm than good", and suggests asking first whether the current process is good enough (gdconf.com: Speaker Q&A: Jodie Azhar advocates…).

In practice: the job title covers very different jobs. Read each advert closely. A shader-focused role, a pipeline-tools role and a performance role need different portfolios.

#Common misconceptions

"A TA is a programmer who sits with the artists." Larian's advert asks for understanding of the modeling and unwrapping pipeline alongside code (Hitmarker job listing: Technical Artist).
"Every problem needs a tool." Azhar lists four reasons to improve a workflow: saving time, improving reliability, reducing the impact of change at critical times, and improving quality (gdconf.com: Speaker Q&A: Jodie Azhar advocates…). If none apply, leave the process alone.
"TAs only matter on big teams." On a small team someone still owns the material setup, the export rules and the frame budget, even without the title. See roles in 3D game production.