An environment artist is responsible for the following:
- Modelling buildings, terrain, dumpsters, pretty much anything and everything you would find in a real-world environment using 3D software such as Maya.
- Maintaining a cohesive design style in terms of layout, art direction, scale, etc.
- Keeping poly-counts as low as possible (much more difficult than high-poly modeling)
- Creating realistic textures and normal maps for the models to simulate photo-real, high-poly objects. This portion requires understanding UV Layouts, Photoshop, and all forms of texture maps such as Normal, Specular, Ambient Occlusion, etc. Arguably, texturing is the most important skill for an environment artist.
- High creativity and attention to detail, so that environments seem natural and lived in, and not static and boring.
- an understanding of lighting, matte painting, and anything else that can help an environment look better is incredibly useful.
Becoming an environment artist for games is A LOT of work. One must not only learn how to use all of the necessary (and expensive) software on a professional level, but be able to implement a high level of artistry and design that can take years to develop. Not to mention, a professional quality portfolio with a respectable amount of pieces can, alone, take years to develop, and without it you are unlikely to even get an interview.
Being an Environment artist is a great path in the game design industry, and offers a lot of entry level positions for small prop modelling and things like that. But if you haven't already started down this path, then you might want to stop sleeping, start studying, and work NON-STOP for the next couple of years before applying to major game studios.
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