Creating 3D realistic stills and animations for an NSFW Visual Novel

About us
We are a small, founder-led indie studio building a story-driven, choice-based adult (18+) 3D visual novel with branching paths, meaningful player decisions, and a strong focus on character-driven narrative. The project blends mystery with sci-fi and fantasy elements, delivered with a cinematic visual style.

We operate as a fully remote team with flexible working hours and a short daily sync to coordinate and discuss plans. We provide access to a central render server for final output, while you work on your own workstation for scene setup, lookdev, and iteration.

About the role
You will be our first 3D artist and will own the visual quality bar for a realistic 3D pipeline: lookdev, lighting, environments, scene setup, and render consistency. You will collaborate closely with a second 3D generalist (focused on production and asset work). This is a hands-on role where your work will directly shape the game’s visual identity.

We will be producing both high-resolution stills and short pre-rendered animations, so you will help set the quality bar for both image and animation output (lighting, materials, motion readability, and render consistency).

Start date: April 2026. We are interviewing from the end of January to February.
We're looking for consistent, long term contributors to the project. In addition to earned pay, we're planning to offer conditional equity bonuses after 12 months of high quality contributions to the project.

Creative ownership and influence
Unlike large studios with rigid pipelines, you will have plenty of creative space:
Optional participation in all creative meetings and reviews (not mandatory)
Strong influence on: visual style, lighting language, environments, shot composition, asset direction, and quality standards
We want your ideas, not just execution

What you will do
Lookdev and visual consistency
Define and maintain the project’s look standards (materials, skin/hair approach, exposure, lens language)
Build reusable presets and template scenes for consistent output across episodes
Lighting and cinematography
Create lighting rigs per location and mood (day, night, interiors, dramatic beats)
Establish shot coverage patterns suitable for VN production (wides, two-shots, close-ups, continuity)
Environments and scene building
Build modular environment kits and dressing packs (campus, interiors, props)
Assemble sets quickly and keep them production-friendly
Production and QC
Prepare scenes for high-volume output and troubleshoot shading, lighting, and render artifacts

Tools and workflow
We provide access to a central render server for final output.
You must have your own home workstation capable of running 3D software smoothly for scene setup, lookdev, previews, and iteration (final frames can render on the server).
Blender-centric pipeline. Familiarity with DAZ assets is a plus (not required).

Requirements
Portfolio demonstrating strong lighting, lookdev, and final-frame polish
Ability to work fast without sacrificing consistency (templates, presets, reusable rigs)
Solid eye for composition and cinematic framing
Reliable English communication and self-management in a remote setting
Comfort working on explicit 18+ content (sexual scenes included)
Animation experience: comfortable with producing short character and camera animations for pre-rendered sequences (timing, posing, basic keyframing, and polishing). Motion-capture is not required.

Nice to have
Render server or headless/batch rendering workflow experience.
Compositing familiarity.
Prior experience with 3DCG visual novels, episodic 3D content, or other high-volume shot pipelines.
Experience with facial animation, lip-sync, or animation polishing for dialogue scenes.

Contract terms
Freelance contract (remote contractor)
Fully remote
Flexible hours (deliverables-focused), daily stand-up attendance required