Quixel: The Ultimate 3D Asset and Application Library for Art Creation

Quixel: The Ultimate 3D Asset and Application Library for Art Creation

Quixel was founded in 2011 by Teddy Bergsman and Waqar Azim, with the goal of substantially speeding up how creators build digital environments. Their team creates Megascans, Bridge, and Mixer which is a 3D asset library and applications for 3D art creation. 

Quixel has been an avid supporter of Cubebrush's Art Wars from the beginning, this year being no different. Here, we get a glimpse of what it's like behind the scenes. 


Can you take us through the art departments at Quixel? How is the dynamic? What does a workflow look like?

Quixel’s three art departments: production, marketing and cinematics all have distinct roles and specific missions within the company. 

The production team is responsible for churning out all those juicy assets you see on the Megascans library, the marketing team works on many fronts; from daily inspiration from Megascans library to larger projects centered around video learning content and tutorials meant to inspire the community, while the cinematics team is focused on larger projects like Rebirth. 

The workflows differ quite a bit between the three divisions, but everything essentially ties back to our vision for the products and our constant push to empower artists in every way we can. 

What type of artists do you typically hire? Why?

We’re generally geared more towards hiring environment and texture artists, mostly because of our focus on “capturing the world”. That said, we do also hire vegetation artists, lighting artists, Houdini artists, and marketing content artists. 

Do you have many people that started using your products and then wanted to work for you?

Wiktor Öhman, our first artist, was a regular user and promoter of our products before we hired him. This practice has since become a Quixel tradition. Quite a few of our in-house artists are people who either won Quixel competitions or created awesome artworks using Megascans or Mixer that caught our eye. If we feel that an artist is capable of adding value to Quixel, we aren’t hesitant in offering them a place on the team.

What does your hiring process look like?

Our hiring process is fairly straightforward. We post openings regularly at quixel.com/jobs and various marketing channels. Just drop your CV, answer a couple of questions and cross your fingers. After initial screening, we’ll call you in for a round of interviews and occasionally a hands-on test too. If we feel you’re a good fit, we’ll reach out to you with a suitable job offer.

Sometimes we’ll come across someone who we feel would be an ideal candidate for a specific role that may or may not have been advertised yet, in which case we directly reach out to that person and see if they’d be interested.

Do you look for anything specific in a portfolio?

We’re on the lookout for a couple of things. Firstly, the story and direction: is your artwork just a fancy display of artistry or does it actually narrate a story? Proper direction shows that you’ve put a great deal of thought into your work, and we love that. 

Secondly, you should pay as much attention to the finer details and nuances as you do to the bigger picture. Consistency is key. 

And finally, it helps if you’ve got a couple of realistic pieces in there too.

What does your onboarding process look like?

Since our processes and workflows are quite unconventional, we take our sweet time integrating new hires into the team. During the first couple of months, recruits are given extensive training on all the tools we use and assigned real-time tasks in order to judge their performance levels. 

In time, and with proper guidance, we bring them up to speed with our seasoned artists, while always instilling in them a sense of ownership and a no-compromises approach to quality.

Can you take us through a day working at Quixel?

A day working at Quixel, at least in the art team, differs quite a bit from a "traditional" studio. The entire team is scattered across the globe, so communication is key. Giving a good answer to this question is tricky as the work and projects vary so much, which is one of the things we enjoy the most about working here. It's impossible to get bored with your work as it changes so often and requires us to stay on our toes and learn new things and challenge ourselves constantly.

Do you take artists’ opinions into account when developing new products?

We always do, and not just with new products. Most (if not all) of our product updates and improvements are based on feedback from our highly active artistic community. Being an artist-centric company has always been the Quixel mantra.

How does that process work?

Based on feedback and suggestions from our community, our product teams decide which features to introduce and which improvements to make in each upcoming build. 

After this framework is laid down, the engineering teams create internal builds for our in-house artists to review. Any and all valuable feedback from these people is taken into account and incorporated into the build. After a final round of reviews, the build is let out into the wild and the process starts over.

Have any advice for aspiring artists out there?

The best piece of advice we can aspiring artists is to spend time out in the real world, doing things other than just sitting in front of a computer. You need to stay fresh and keep expanding your mental reference library. Google Images is great, but actually seeing new things for yourself is something completely different. Not only will it help prevent you from getting stuck in a rut, but it will also help you and your art feel fresh and original. Keep at it, you've got this!


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Check out Art War 4 HERE