The Specialisations Map
Technical art includes several overlapping specialisations. You may work across them or focus on one, depending on the team. This page gives examples of the tasks, skills, and starter projects for each.
Use the examples to decide what you'd like to try. Demand varies between studios and over time, so don't treat the descriptions as a job-market ranking. A small project in an unfamiliar area will tell you more about the work than the title alone.
01 - Shaders & Materials
Build materials that achieve the intended look within the rendering budget.
Master materials, water, dissolves, snow, and fabric shading all sit here. The work combines visual development with measuring and controlling rendering cost.
"The AD wants wet streets after the rain system triggers - build a material function every surface can opt into, without doubling permutations."
- HLSL + node graphs (both, not either)
- PBR theory, colour spaces, the GPU pipeline
- Profiling: overdraw, instruction counts
This may suit you if you enjoy investigating why a surface looks wrong and adjusting the material until it behaves as intended.
Shaders & HLSL section -> Materials 101 -> build one effect end-to-end for the portfolio.
02 - Pipeline & Tools
Reduce repeated work and make asset workflows more reliable.
Exporters, validators, batch processors, and DCC integrations help content move through production. Much of the work involves understanding existing steps and improving them without disrupting the team.
"Character exports break whenever someone renames a bone - build validation that catches it at submit time, not at 6pm before the milestone."
- Python, deeply - plus one DCC's API
- Version control internals (start here)
- UX empathy: tools artists actually use
This may suit you if you enjoy automating tasks, working with users, and supporting the result after the first version is finished.
First Pipeline Script -> the Rosetta Stone -> rebuild one of our tools inside a DCC.
03 - Rigging & Character Tech
Build rigs that give animators useful, predictable control.
Skeletons, skinning, control rigs, and corrective shapes combine anatomy with transformations and deformation. Test the result in the poses and workflows the project needs.
"The shoulder candy-wraps at extreme poses. Add a twist-bone chain and correctives - without breaking the 60 animations already published."
- Maya (still the AAA standard - rigging with Python)
- Deformation theory, quaternions without fear
- Automation for repeated rigging and skinning tasks
This may suit you if you enjoy anatomy, motion, and diagnosing deformation problems with animators.
Rigging with Python, then rig and break something bipedal, repeatedly.
04 - Vfx / Fx
Build effects that communicate the action and fit the performance budget.
This includes particle systems, shader animation, and baking simulations into runtime assets such as flipbooks or vertex animation textures.
"The ultimate ability reads as a grey smudge on the Steam Deck. Rebuild it: fewer, smarter cards, shader displacement instead of particle count."
- Niagara/particle systems + material animation
- Houdini for sims (start here) -> engine bakes
- Overdraw instincts (performance)
This may suit you if you enjoy motion, timing, and visual clarity. Show the effect in context and explain the performance choices in your portfolio.
Try recreating an effect in Niagara, then explain the techniques you used and how you checked its cost. The noise generator can help with source textures.
05 - Procedural / Houdini
Build systems that generate content artists can control.
HDAs, scattering systems, terrain tools, and buildings generated from curves can reduce repeated content work. They need useful controls and validation as well as a working procedural graph.
For example: level design changes a canyon curve, so the terrain and placement systems need to regenerate suitable rocks and foliage from the updated input.
- Houdini SOPs + VEX (our 950-snippet library lives here)
- The attribute mindset - data flowing through nodes
- Houdini Engine / engine integration
This may suit you if you enjoy designing reusable systems and balancing procedural rules with direct artistic control.
Houdini section -> build a curve-driven fence/pipe/road tool - the classic first HDA.
06 - Tech Animation
Everything between "animation approved" and "animation in game."
Retargeting, state machines, ragdolls, cloth and hair sim, animation pipelines. Sits between rigging and gameplay engineering; often shares a desk with both.
"Mocap for the new enemy retargets fine except the fingers, which explode. Find out why the source skeleton disagrees with ours about knuckle twist."
- Engine animation systems (state machines, blend spaces)
- Retargeting, root motion, IK theory
- Python for batch animation processing
This may suit you if you enjoy motion quality and investigating how animation data behaves inside an engine.
Rigging first (Maya path), then Unreal's animation blueprints - retarget mocap onto your own rig and fix what breaks.
07 - Lighting Tech
Help lighting artists achieve the intended look within the frame budget.
Lighting workflows, lightmaps, global illumination, exposure, and diagnostic tools all sit here. The aim is to make iteration practical while keeping the rendering cost understood.
"Night levels hitch when the player torches the village. Profile whether it's shadow-casting light count or Lumen updates, then build the debug view that shows lighting artists their own cost."
- Engine lighting deeply (our lighting perf guide)
- Colour science, exposure, tonemapping
- Profiling and budget design
This may suit you if you enjoy lighting, colour, and profiling. The role may be a dedicated specialisation or part of a broader TA position.
Lighting & Shadows, then relight one scene three ways (noir / golden hour / horror) with the same geometry and profile all three.
08 - Generalist
Work across several areas as the project's needs change.
A small team may need the same TA to maintain exporters, build materials, and support animation. That breadth can help you discover what interests you, provided the workload and support are realistic.
For example: investigate an export issue, check a material on the target platform, and help an artist with version control. Agree priorities when those requests compete.
- Python + one DCC + one engine, all solid
- Triage: knowing what not to build
- Communication and prioritisation (see the soft skills page)
This may suit you if you enjoy variety and investigating unfamiliar problems. The Indie Dev section covers related work on small teams.
The whole Start Here path - it deliberately builds a generalist before specialising.
Choosing An Area To Explore
Start with an area that interests you and finish a small project. If you're unsure, a pipeline script is a useful way to practise programming while solving a concrete task. Review what you enjoyed and what you found difficult, then choose the next experiment. Your first choice doesn't need to define your whole career.