RealityKit Technical Artist / Particle FX Specialist for tvOS App (ASAP)

Request for Proposal (RFP): 3D Visual Asset & Particle FX Pack Company: SportIQ Project Name: Interactive Retail Kiosk Installation (tvOS App) Project Type: Short-Term Creative Contract (Fixed-Price Milestone) Target Start Date: ASAP (Immediate Start Upon Selection) Application Review: Rolling Basis (Hiring Immediately) 1. Project Overview & Context We are SportIQ, a smart basketball company developing an interactive, gamified retail installation built natively for Apple TV (tvOS 18+). The application sits directly behind a physical hoop in our flagship retail experience. As players shoot our proprietary SportIQ smart basketball, real-time telemetry data is processed by our system. Our in-house engineering team is handling the entire full-stack architecture, database queue, hardware telemetry packet parsing, and all state-machine code logic. We are seeking a 3D Technical Artist / RealityKit Asset Designer to build a premium, arcade-grade library of modular 3D assets, particle effects, and spatial audio objects. You will not be writing text rendering code or UI elements. Your job is to deliver a clean "Asset Factory" class of highly fluent, reactive visual animations that our engineers can programmatically call and layer on top of our canvas. 2. Technical Specifications & Transition Fluidity Target Environment: RealityKit (with Reality Composer Pro) inside tvOS 18+. Performance Target: Absolute lock at 60 FPS on Apple TV hardware. Particle counts and textures must be highly optimized for memory efficiency. Fluent Mid-Flight Transitions (Critical): Because telemetry data arrives dynamically, visual effects must be architected to morph and transition fluently in real time. For example, while the ball is traveling along its flying physics arc wrapped in a Fire Trail, a sudden state change check must smoothly kill the fire particles and immediately bloom into the next animation phase (e.g., morphing into an encasing Ice Cube, triggering an Extinguisher Blast, or executing an abrupt Catch Freeze) without visual stuttering or popping the mesh out of existence. 3. Required Scope of Work (The Base Asset Pack) The selected freelancer will design, tune, and deliver the following visual components inside an isolated Xcode playground project: SportIQ Smart Ball Material Skins: Programmatic 3D sphere material variations, specifically: Custom Texture-Mappable Skin: A fully customizable material allowing our team to programmatically pass flat 2D image assets/patterns to be wrapped seamlessly around the 3D sphere. Reflective Golden Ball: A high-shine, premium metallic reflective skin used for hot streaks. Flying Arc / Mid-Flight FX: Fire Trail: An additive, glowing neon flame trail attached as a child entity that tracks fluidly with the ball's velocity vector. Electric Arc Trail: A crackling, cyan lightning trail alternative. Ice Cage (Freeze Morph): A modular, semi-transparent jagged 3D ice cube geometry that can instantly wrap the ball mid-flight, extinguishing any current trail particles. Mid-Air "Catch" Event FX: The Catch Absorber: An animation designed for when a player or trainer intercepts/catches the ball mid-air before it reaches the hoop. The moment our logic kills the linear velocity vector, the ball should experience an instantaneous "impact absorption" look (e.g., a localized ring shockwave or a quick puff of friction smoke at the catch coordinate) followed by a smooth scale-down/fade-out to clear the asset. Success/Streak Ending FX: Black Hole Swish: A swirling, gravity-warping vortex particle field triggered at the center of the rim on high-arc perfect shots. CO2 Fire Extinguisher Blast: A dense, horizontal white powdery stream blasting from off-screen to quench active fire states mid-flight when a player misses. Water Drench (Bucket-less Pour): A heavy, localized vertical downpour of translucent blue water particles that drops instantly from a plane above the ball to extinguish a hot streak (note: no 3D bucket asset is needed; the effect should look like an invisible bucket of water was dumped on the ball, transitioning immediately into a brief sizzle/steam puff). RNG Explosions: Fun reward splashes triggered randomly at the net (e.g., a burst of 3D movie popcorn, raining digital cash). Impact & Environment FX: Shattering Backboard: A sudden burst of translucent, reflective square glass shard particles falling via gravity, triggered on high-impact "brick" shots. Concrete Crack Overlay: A textured 3D plane overlay that maps spiderweb impact fractures onto our target backboard surface coordinate. Airball Dust Cloud: A comic, wispy puff of smoke erupting at floor level. Spatial Audio Mapping: High-quality sound effect assets (.wav/.caf) natively anchored to the 3D spatial coordinates of the visual objects, moving seamlessly across the audio field with the entities (including distinct "thud/catch" and "water sizzling" audio syncs). 4. Proposal Pitch Request: Propose Your Own Visualizations To ensure this kiosk stands out and doesn't feel repetitive, we want to see your creative flair. As part of your proposal submission, you are required to pitch 2 to 3 alternative, out-of-the-box visualization concepts that you would be excited to build for this app. Please briefly outline the visual concept and how you would construct it efficiently using RealityKit’s native particle or material systems. We are highly open to expanding the budget to include your custom ideas if they fit our high-tech, energetic athletic brand identity. 5. Contract Milestones & Payment Structure This project will be executed on a Fixed-Price, milestone-escrow basis. Please quote your flat total rate split across these two structural deliverables: Milestone 1: The "Success & Flight Transition" Pack (50% of Budget) Deliverables: Completed, performant material skins (including the dynamically texture-mappable setup), mid-flight trails (Fire, Electricity, Ice Cage), the Mid-Air Catch animation asset, and fluent fade-out/morph transition code structures, alongside all Make/Swish variants. Milestone 2: The "Impact & Miss" Pack + Audio Integration (50% of Budget) Deliverables: Completed assets for the Extinguisher blast, Water Drench splash, Shattering Glass, Concrete Cracks, floor impacts, and RNG explosions, with all spatial audio loops mapped cleanly to the moving entities. 6. Submission Requirements To be considered, please provide: RealityKit / visionOS Portfolio: Direct links to videos or code repositories demonstrating custom particle systems, shaders, or 3D scene builds using RealityKit, ARKit, or visionOS. Applications with generic web/business app portfolios will not be reviewed. Your Custom Visualization Pitches: Your written concept pitches as requested in Section 4. Fixed-Price Quote: Your flat fee for the full scope of work divided across Milestones 1 and 2. Timeline: Your estimated timeframe to complete and hand over the asset playground (we anticipate a 2-week sprint). Remote Work & Async Collaboration Structure: 100% Remote, Global Talent Welcome This contract is entirely location-independent. We care about the quality of the visual physics, frame rates, and creative execution—not your time zone. Sandbox Autonomy (No Monitored Hours): You will be working entirely within an isolated Xcode sandbox playground repository. There is no tracking software or mandatory desk hours. You have absolute freedom to hit the milestones on your own schedule.