Summary
I am a dedicated and versatile video game developer that has primarily been interested in and motivated by multiplayer games for most of my life. I have 12 years of professional game development experience to date. I mostly perform world building and level design tasks, managing my own work, and doing what I can to help push development forward, no matter the circumstance.
My somewhat rocky experience working professionally in game development lead me to go back to school and get another degree, a Bachelor's in Architecture. Going back to school helped to redefine and shape my values in regards to the creative work that I do. Working in a studio environment with a bunch of passionate students who are doing their best to change the world was a fun and inspiring experience, an experience which helped to give me a renewed sense of direction in game development. Connecting to the community of people for whom I am creating and designing for is very important to myself, and a goal which I strive towards as I continue to work in the game development industry.
For the last couple years I have spent many hours diving into virtual reality, teaching myself the Unity engine and taking part in the wacky and wonderful community growing inside the social VR application, VRChat. I have been a part of the VRChat community for a long time now and have seen many inspiring things including life changing experiences which have helped certain people immensely in their every day lives. I have gone to many events and discussions in VRChat and have learned a lot about technology, the future, and virtual reality's potential to positively impact the world as a whole. My architecture experience has transferred quite nicely into virtual reality since we experience and inhabit VR in a similar way to real world social spaces.
I was recently offered a job at Treyarch and accepted it (1/24/20), and I am no longer actively looking for a job.
Skills
Software proficiency
Experience
- Level Designer/Artist at TreyarchSanta Monica, CA, United States of AmericaFebruary 2020 - Present
Doing stuff and things
- Level Designer at Digital ConfectionersSeattle, WA, United States of AmericaJanuary 2015 - December 2018
Remote, contract work on Depth, Depth VR, & Last Tide - UE3 and UE4
• Polished / Finalized all 14 multiplayer levels for Depth, resulting in a more optimized and functional game
• Polished / Finalized many static meshes through 3D modeling, collision meshes, lightmaps, and material creation
• Designed and constructed 4 multiplayer levels through self-management, enhancing and extending the value and life
Depth. Built a tutorial level to expedite the player’s learning and teach game mechanics
• Assisted with Unreal Asset Integration and Art Outsource Management, filling an important role between the programmers and 3D artists. Communicated level design needs to artists to give direction and start production
• Addressed issues and feedback mentioned on the Steam forums, played Depth to understand issues further
• Designed and constructed an underwater Virtual Reality environment for the Depth VR demo, shown at the Penny Arcade Expo, Australia 2016
• Prototyped a new video game intellectual property for potential further development
• Fixed a backlog of hundreds of issues with the environment, for the open world Battle Royale game Last Tide
• Communicated with external contractor SuperGenius Studio about world building and content issues - Level Designer at Blindside InteractiveSeattle, WA, United States of AmericaJanuary 2017 - March 2018
From the creator of Killing Floor and Depth comes… Maneater! - UE4
• Collaborated with a small team of developers to design and build an open world single player Action RPG game
• Developed the world’s environment to a point at which Tripwire, purchased the intellectual property and published the game (Epic Games Store, 2019)
• Conceptualized the environment through research, image gathering, sketching, design documentation, diagrammatic 2D layouts, and discussion
• Constructed the environment through blocking, set-dressing, kitbashing, landscape sculpting, landscape painting, foliage painting, AI placement, navigation nodes, lighting, and VFX placement
• Experimented with Blackboard, AI Behavior Trees, and the Sequence Editor to help push production forward
• Developed asset lists based on my conceptualized needs for each differing game environment
• Blocked out asset lists with 3D Modeling, and assigned assets to artist to begin production
• Optimized and streamlined the functionality of the environment with culling and blocking volumes. Created optimized blueprints with instanced static meshes to aid in the efficient construction of the world’s environment - Level Designer at Pure FPSPortland, OR, United States of AmericaApril 2014 - November 2014
Remote, contract work on Alone in the Dark: Illumination (Atari) - UE4
• Built cooperative levels using the assets that were available to me through self-management
• Interpreted 2D diagrammatic layouts to aid in my direction: sketched environments to conceptualize - Level Designer at Supergenius StudioOregon City, OR, United States of AmericaApril 2012 - April 2013
I created multiplayer maps for indie PC game, Forge - UE3
• Designed and constructed multiplayer levels from provided concept images
• Collaborated with coworkers to design and construct the tutorial levels, to help teach game mechanics to players
• Communicated with Level Design Lead to plan level creation and asset lists, and modeled greybox assets
• Provided Unreal Asset Integration and Quality Assurance assistance to help facilitate better content standards
• Addressed feedback coming from Forge’s online multiplayer community after embedding myself within it, communicated game issues to coworkers - Digital Artist at Herenow CreativePortland, OR, United States of AmericaOctober 2011 - December 2011
Created Nike apparel textures in Photoshop based off apparel concepts and photo reference. Apparel textures were then used in conjunction with their corresponding geometry to flesh out the interior of Nike stores in Cinema 4D for pre-visualization purposes.
- Lead Artist / Unreal Integration at Liquid DevelopmentPortland, OR, United States of AmericaOctober 2007 - May 2011
• Kinect Adventures (Microsoft Game Studios) - Unreal asset Integration, level & asset optimization, playtesting, bug-fixing, modeling, QA. Provided support at MGS to achieve console performance standards (UE3)
• Damnation (Blue Omega Entertainment) - Unreal asset integration, Kismet scripting, playtesting, bug-fixing, modeling, texturing, QA. Supported project by self-teaching Kismet, to assist with NPC scripting needs. Processed hundreds of static meshes to directly aid the Art Production Manager (UE3)
• Tron: Evolution (Propaganda Games) - Unreal asset integration, modeling. Propagated final highway geometry through 80 modular assets. Delegated asset production tasks to balance personal work load (UE3)
• Rosetta Stone Ltd. - Modeling, QA. Tracked, organized, and evaluated the production of character art and hard surface models. Communicated with artists about the expectations of the client (Language Learning Software)
• Carnival Island (Magic Pixel Games) – skinning (UE3)
• Dragon Age 2 (Bioware) - modeling, texturing (UE3)
• Mafia Wars 2 (Zynga) - modeling, texturing (Facebook)