CV

Karla Martinez
Expert Lighting Artist / karla.martinez@gmail.com / 6472208804/ www.karla3d.com

OBJECTIVE

Expert Lighting Artist with 15+ years of AAA game development experience across leading studios including EA, Ubisoft, and Square Enix. Seeking a role that challenges me intellectually while allowing me to lead and grow alongside my teammates. Passionate about building collaborative, innovative teams.

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY

Highdive
Expert Lighting Artist | Jan 2023 – Present

Working on an unreleased title as the sole lighting artist, responsible for building and maintaining the complete lighting pipeline. Collaborated closely with the Art Director to establish a cohesive visual style encompassing multiple times of day, diverse interior environments, lighting prop specifications, and asset creation. Optimized performance through careful management of lighting resources and rendering efficiency. Partnered with the Technical Artist on pipeline tools and streaming solutions for light rig assets. Created and maintained comprehensive documentation including best practices, onboarding guides, and technical specifications. Coordinated with Level Design and Level Art teams to light environments while maintaining the golden path, supporting gameplay requirements, and upholding the Art Director’s vision. Worked with the cinematic team to develop a specialized lighting pipeline that achieves their visual requirements while seamlessly integrating with in-game lighting systems and creating smooth transitions between cinematic and gameplay sequences.

Unity
Lead Lighting Artist and Rendering Artist | Oct 2021 – Dec 2022

Collaborated with a local development team on an unreleased title, working directly with the Art Director and client to understand project goals and recommend lighting strategies tailored to their needs. Proposed and implemented new rendering pipelines optimized for the project’s specific technical setup in partnership with the Technical Art team. Developed custom tooling to support the project’s unique requirements. Created and maintained project documentation covering pipeline workflows, best practices, and technical specifications. Additionally contributed to several smaller digital twin projects, including stock exchange visualization and experiential content for Apple’s emerging platform technologies.

UBISOFT
Senior Lighting Artist | May 2015 – Oct 2021

WATCH DOGS LEGION
Responsible for in-game lighting across a variety of environments, missions, and interactive elements including shop lighting and character select menu. Created core lighting assets utilized by the broader lighting team. Coordinated lighting with co-development studios and provided technical support to external teams. Established lighting documentation covering onboarding, best practices, tools, debugging, and memory optimization.

WATCH DOGS 2
Lighting for key environments and in-game cinematics including restaurants, clothing shops, and car dealerships.

FAR CRY PRIMAL
Character and environment lighting for next-generation consoles and PC. Collaborated closely with the Art Director and gameplay team to create lighting that both enhanced visual impact and served as a gameplay guide for players.

EIDOS MONTREAL / SQUARE ENIX
Senior Lighting Artist | June 2012 – May 2015

Led lighting across multiple flagship projects, managing character and environment lighting while establishing cohesive visual language across teams. Supervised cinematic lighting to ensure consistency throughout narrative and gameplay sequences. Set lighting mood to support both story and gameplay objectives. Collaborated with FX and gameplay departments to achieve unified artistic vision. Managed lighting streaming, optimization, and debugging while working with engineers on tools and performance. Established best practices and documentation for current projects. Handled on-screen graphical effects and cube map generation for reflection systems.

RISE OF THE TOMB RAIDER
Senior Lighting Artist responsible for character and environment lighting in the Montreal division, as well as cinematic and in-game cinematic lighting. Supervised cinematic team to maintain visual cohesion. Managed lighting streaming and optimization while ensuring assets remained on performance budget.

THIEF 4
Lighting Artist managing cinematic lighting for environments and characters across both in-engine and pre-rendered cinematics. Collaborated with FX department to achieve seamless transitions between pre-rendered and in-engine cinematics. Maintained visual cohesion with the rest of the environment as lighting finalization in the pipeline. Worked with Art Director to establish lighting goals and camera depth-of-field.

ELECTRONIC ARTS
Lighting Artist | April 2007 – June 2012

Environment and character lighter for next generation games and Wii titles. Ensuring the vision of the art director translates into the environment using a variety of in house tools, and developing new techniques to satisfy each project’s needs.

FIFA 13 (PS3 & XBOX 360) Environment Lighting (2012)
SSX (PS3 & XBOX 360) Global lighting (2012)
FIFA 12 (PS3 & XBOX 360) Environment Lighting (2011)
Fight Night Champion (PS3 & XBOX 360) Environment Lighting and Character Lighting (2010)
NHL 11 (PS3 & XBOX 360) Environment Lighting & Modelling (2010) – Lighting Lead
NHL Slapshot (Wii) Environment Lighting & Modelling (2010)
FIFA World Cup 2010 (PS3 & XBOX 360) Environment Lighting (2010)
Tennis Grand Slam 09 (Wii) Environment Lighting Lead (2009)
March Madness 09 (PS3 &XBOX 360) Environment Lighting (2008)
NBA Live 09 (PS3 & XBOX 360) Environment Lighting (2008)
Facebreaker (PS3 & XBOX 360) Environment Lighting (2008)
NBA Live 08 (PS3 & XBOX 360) Environment Lighting (2007)

EDUCATION

3D Animation and Visual Effects Program – Vancouver Film School, Vancouver, BC, Canada (2005–2006)

Industrial Design – Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Jalisco, México (2000–2004)

TECHNICAL SKILLS

Software: Unreal Engine, Unity, Maya, Photoshop, ZBrush, After Effects, Premiere Pro, Davinci Resolve, lightroom, Capture One.

Expertise: Lighting Pipeline Development, Performance Optimization, Technical Art Collaboration, Team Leadership, Best Practices Documentation