portfolio: world art PORTFOLIO
Amazon Game studios - seattle/ OC/ BUCHAREST
“NEW WORLD: AETERNUM”, 2024, PS5
WiP
SEASONAL MODE UPDATES & MAPS
PC ASSET OPTIMIZATION FOR CONSOLE SPEC. REQUIREMENTS
“NEW WORLD”, 2021, PC
WiP
OUTPOST RUSH
SEASONAL EVENTS
QUARTERLY NARRATIVE-DRIVEN QUEST UPDATES
RELENTLESS STUDIOS (Amazon Game studios - seattle)
“CRUCIBLE”, 2020, PC
What a journey! CRUCIBLE is a 5+ year project that shipped in Spring of 2020, on which I lead a team of talented world artists ranging from 2 (including myself) to 10 throughout development.
As Lead World Artist, my contributions ranged quite a bit throughout the process…
Collaborating with art direction, design, concept artists, and especially my team members to establish the visual direction of environments, to development of the world building and asset pipelines
Prototyping a variety of different levels before we settled on the main map: Colony Zero.
As we shifted into production, I was responsible primarily for level building, set dressing, providing visual and gameplay feedback to the team, as well as team lead/ management, and scheduling responsibilities.
The following video and screenshots were all rendered in Amazon’s Lumberyard Engine, including callouts where applicable…
(NOTE: Mouse over image for captions/ callouts)
‘The early days’… A couple of years into the project my team and I drove a visual reboot on the environment. Stripping away a bit of the monotonous shape language that was working against driving identity between the 10 different regions in the game. After a series of quick visDev vignettes, we set forth on integrating some of the new visual theming into the existing level’s layout with positive results.
For the following video, I was responsible for some of the scene composition/ layout, integrating many of the visDev vignettes into the existing level layout, set dressing, terrain sculpting and painting, camera work, and general lead responsibilities.
During the first year of Crucible’s development there were quite a few revs on visual development of the environment- Definitely exciting times to be driving the visuals of a brand-new IP.
Aside from art direction and concept, the themes, ‘beautiful yet deadly, and ‘aquatic’ helped drive our aesthetics, in addition to shooting for a clean and inviting style landing somewhere ~stylized realism.
At this point our team consistent of one Senior World Artist and myself with additional sport coming towards the end of year one.
For the following video, I was responsible for much of the level block in, set dressing, terrain sculpting and painting, minimal asset work (the shell plants, and block in for ~1/3 of the plant, fungi, and rock assets), camera shots, and general team lead responsibilities.
“PROJECT quasar”, (SHELVED) 2015, PC
My role as WorldArt Lead involved collaborating with AD and other artists to establish visual direction of environments, level + asset buildout, final set polish, lighting, and material work, all in addition to running a team ranging from 3-5 artists.
All the while I was collaborating with design, engineering, and tech art to test procedural level creation and boolean level destruction, which may have been the ultimate downfall of the project.
NOTE: Apologies for debug text. WiP shots.
“The unmaking”, 2013, Kindle FIRE
My work as WorldArt Lead on the Unmaking was quite extensive. Collaboration with AD and other artists to establish the visual direction of environments, prototyping a wide range of levels including terrain and assets, as well as final set polish, material work and terrain blends, all while running a team made up of a handful of artists. In addition to leading and managing the team, I was also responsible for the vast majority of the world building, working closely with designers in support of gameplay.
Rendered almost entirely in ‘the cloud’ (aside from the turret), ‘The Unmaking’ was one of the most ambitious and innovative games that I’ve worked on to date.
NOTE: Video shows it off much better than the screens!
MONOLITH productions/ wb games seattle
“MIDDLE-EARTH: SHADOW OF MORDOR, 2014, PC, PS4, XBOX1
On the final phase of MORDOR’S development, I contributed as a senior level artist- Responsibilities included architectural modeling and set dressing for the shanty town and ruins areas, in addition to material work- All while working closely with design to ensure smooth navigation throughout the environments.
The images below are from the 2nd (or 3rd?) phase of development. This direction (most of the game existing in subterranean environments) was scrapped after ~6 months of development, after I believe user research determined that— although large and cavernous— might leave the players feeling claustrophobic.
I led a team of ~6 artists to create this level, responsible for their scheduling and visual feedback. In addition I coordinated with lighting, FX, and design while keeping the level within framerate and memory budget constraints. I also assembled [structural, prop prefabs, decals, etc.] ~75% of the level from post-whitebox stage to completion, modeling ~75% of the initial-pass prefab assets and non-instanced geometry. Additionally I generated some of the context-sensitive “markup” geometry on the assets for player interaction + helped maintain navigability during construction.
“GUARDIANS OF MIDDLE EARTH”, 2012, XBLA/ XBOX 360, PSN/ PS3…
PVP Levels... The Shire, Mirkwood, & Goblin Caves... I worked primarily with 1 other world artist [+ a lighting artist] on this set of PVP DLC level ‘skins’. I was responsible for contributing to high level organization/ composition, terrain work/ sculpting, prefab modeling + UVs [in addition to using re-purposed from other games within the studio/ game], collision, propping, material/ texture work + blend painting, decals, etc. in addition to keeping the levels within memory + framerate budget.
