Credits-Reel-Plate

Credits Reel

Just a short compilation that shows a few highlights from the titles i have been credited on thus far in my career. This reel is basically a snapshot of my career as of the start of 2014.

DemoVimeoSlate

Demo Reel

I wanted to be a part of the game industry for as long as I can remember. I originally started pursuing this dream as a Computer Science student hoping to become a programmer. At some point though, I realized that to fully realize my potential I needed an outlet for my creative passion as well. This led me to change my major to Game Art & Design. I have now found the niche that my unique blend of logic and creativity fills in the field of Technical Art.

I have six years of academic experience; two in computer science and four in game art and design. I am proficient with several 3D modeling applications including Maya, 3DS Max, and Zbrush. I am versed in the Unreal Tournament 3 engine both in it’s initial UT3 Editor form and it’s expanded form UDK. I am familiar with several scripting and programming languages including MEL, javascript, Uscript, Lua, Visual Basic, C++, and Java. I am currently learning Python in my free time in order to further expand my repertoire. I have worked as a tech artist on AAA title Uncharted 3, I have been the lead technical artist at two small game studios, and I have done special effects for a short film that won “Best Short” at Screamfest LA 2012.

This is a demo reel to show a brief yet varied selection of my skills. I hope it entertains, inspires, and impresses. Thank you for watching.

BfB-Trailer-1

Lead Technical Artist

I was the lead technical artist at Confetti Games through the development of their studio-launch title Blackfoot Blade. Here is the first trailer made for the game in it’s beta stage. Duties included creating and maintaining particle effects, integrating art assets, developing pipeline tools for art team (using MEL scripting, XML data files, and C++), working closely with programmers to develop and streamline our art pipeline to get assets into the game quickly and efficiently. Acted as liaison to contract artists and implemented the contracted assets into our pipeline.

Dynamic Lighting and Particles

UDK Dynamic Lighting and Particle Effects

These are a sampling of effects achieved through use of particle effects and scripted lighting in UDK. The particle effects are set up in Unreal’s Cascade editor. The lighting effects are a combination of material based light functions and Kismet scripting.

Effect one is a sci-fi plasma generator. The lighting is controlled through Kismet to flicker at randomized intervals that are generated on the fly through Kismet and then piped into the playback speed of a matinee event that toggles the dynamic light off and on. The beams/arcs are set up in Cascade as beam emitters. The crackling arc itself is achieved by panning cloud textures across one another in a dynamic material that is then applied to the beam particles.

The second effect is a fire effect consisting of 3 particle emitters and a material based light function. The emitters include one blobby particle emitter that creates the main flames of the fire effect, one smoke emitter, and a randomized spark emitter that emits bursts of sparks at randmized intervals to simulate the popping and cracling that occurs as wood and other fuel are combusted.

Finally there is the damaged light effect which consists of a spark emitter, a scripted material instance, and a scripted dynamic light. The material instance is controlled by the same script that toggles the light off and on; when it toggles the light off it also turns off the emissive channel of the material instance and when the light is toggled back on the emissive channel of the material is also reactivated. The sparks are a very basic burst emitter in Cascade which has its burst fired at random intervals.

Water-1

Maya: nParticle Liquid

This was an attempt to simulate pouring water using Maya nParticle dynamics to simulate liquid behavior. The water is using an nParticle volumetric material and the glass is using a camera based blinn shader with the FacingRatio piped into it’s transparency value to achieve the desired transparency falloff effect.

Genie

Maya 3D Fluid Effects

This was an experiment to create the effect of a genie emerging from a bottle using Maya 3D fluid dynamics to control the smoke. The dynamics control the color and motion of the smoke while hidden geometry set to collide with the dynamic fluid cause it to hold a generally humanoid shape.

UDK-Material-Effects

UDK Material Effects

This is a breakdown of the material effect used in my demo reel.

It shows the material node network that utilizes animated cloud textures to randomize the pattern of the dissolve effect and to achieve the glow along the leading/trailing edge of the dissolve.

It shows the material instance interface where the externalized variables in the material can be altered on a per instance basis so that a level artist can modify the effect to be used with any asset simply by supplying a base texture and a few values to the material instance.

It also shows the Kismet script setup that allows the effect to react differently based on the DamageType variable supplied by the engine.

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More to be Added Soon!

I will be updating and adding more examples as time allows.