Technical Artist in Shading and Effects

Validate your expertise and demonstrate to employers that you have the technical skills and applied knowledge required for senior roles in the gaming industry.

Buy now

For advanced technical artists

This certification is for game industry professionals who have 5+ years of experience in roles such as Shader Writer, Lighter, and Effects Artist.

Shading and effects artists are responsible for implementing the look, style, theme, and aesthetics of the game. Artists with these core skills implement real-time and baked lighting, create and customize shaders and rendering systems, and create particle systems and effects that interact with other assets. Please note that this exam will not be offered after February 2021.

Prerequisites

Experience in a video game development studio, with at least two shipped titles
5+ years of relevant professional artist experience
Strong knowledge of lighting techniques and workflows
Expert-level understanding of material authoring for physically based rendering pipelines
Expert-level understanding of color correction and post effects
Strong knowledge of photographic concepts

Experience writing shaders in HLSL, CgFX, and other shading languages
Knowledge of coding using languages such as C++, C#, or Unityscript
Strong knowledge of particle systems, dynamic simulations, and interchange formats such as Alembic
Fluency with asset-creation tools such as Adobe Creative Suite, Substance Designer, Substance Painter, Quixel Suite, etc.
Strong understanding of 2D and 3D math concepts

What’s on the Exam?

You can expect to see questions across these topics:

Tooling and pipeline
Rendering
Shaders
Particles and effects
Performance

Exam Details

This exam is available in the following languages. Click for more details:

Get Certified

Validate your technical artist skills by getting Unity Certified.

Buy now

Explore Certifications

Find the right certification to meet your needs. Check out Unity’s full suite of Certifications across four difficulty levels and specialization tracks ranging from Programmer to Artist.

User

High school and Unity beginners

These entry-level certifications validate your foundational skills in Unity and ability to create interactive, real-time 3D experiences.

Certified User: Programmer

Certified User: Artist (coming December 2020)

Certified User: VR Developer (coming December 2020)

Associate

Post-secondary and aspiring professionals

Stand out from the crowd with a certification designed for creators with a portfolio of Unity projects ready to apply for their first professional Unity role.

Certified Associate: Game Developer

Certified Associate: Programmer (coming February 2021)

Certified Associate: Artist (coming February 2021)