FX Look Dev Artist - Feature (Blender)

OUR STORY

For more than 35 years, Bardel Entertainment has been growing and evolving, yet at our core, we remain grounded in the creative roots of the craft of animation.  Our pursuit of fresh ideas, techniques, and technologies is driven by the belief that together, through creativity and collaboration, we can accomplish anything!  If you want to be part of an environment that empowers you to experiment, learn, and contribute to exciting projects, come and join us.

About the Role  

We are transitioning to a Blender-based pipeline and are looking for an FX Look Dev Artist to help bridge effects, materials, and procedural workflows. This role will focus on building and maintaining FX-driven shaders and materials that support effects such as fire, smoke, magic, debris, weather, and other dynamic elements.  

You will work closely with FX, Surfacing, Lighting, and Pipeline to ensure shaders are performant, flexible, and production-ready.  

What You’ll Do

• Create and maintain procedural shaders and materials for FX elements in Blender  

• Collaborate with FX Artists to translate simulations and FX setups into final-quality surfacing  

• Build reusable shader templates and node groups to support scalability across shows  

• Optimize shaders for performance, render efficiency, and consistency  

• Work with Lighting and Look Dev to ensure FX materials integrate seamlessly into shots  

• Troubleshoot and improve existing FX surfacing workflows  

• Help define best practices for FX surfacing in a Blender pipeline  

What you’ll bring: 

• Strong experience with Blender shader nodes (Cycles)  

• Solid understanding of surfacing principles (PBR workflows, shading, textures, look dev) 

• Basic knowledge of lighting 

• Experience supporting FX elements (volumes, VDBs, procedural materials, animated textures, etc.)  

• Comfortable working in node-based, procedural workflows  

• Ability to collaborate across departments and adapt to evolving pipelines  

• Bonus, Houdini and substance designer knowledge. 

Location: Candidates based in BC or QC will be prioritized.

Start: ASAP

Length: 3 months

Pay Range: CAD $1,500 - $1,800 per week   

This salary range reflects our current expectations for these roles as of this posting’s date. Your final salary offer will consider various key factors, including your education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographical location, as well as the needs and requirements of the business. 

Flexible work environment, Extended Health and Wellness from day 1, RRSP matching are just some of the benefits. For more details, check out our website. 

At Bardel, we recognize that flexibility is key to doing great work. Our hybrid work environment is a valued perk designed to support individual accountability and empower our teams to work where they’re most productive. We offer the choice to work remotely, balanced with intentional in-person time for collaboration, creativity, and team building. This role requires in-studio attendance at our Vancouver studio during onboarding and predetermined Rush Weeks. 

If this seems like a good fit, what are you waiting for, get your application in!