Turn 10 Studios
Environment Lead
The Forza franchise is a true AAA product & I am proud to have had the opportunity to work alongside a very talented team.
Forza 3
When I joined Turn 10 Studios, my core responsibility was to create & drive visuals on specific tracks. Le Mans was one of those tracks & it is arguably one of most historic & famous tracks in the world. I began by blocking out basic elements of the track & implemented visual landmarks. Professional drivers gave me direct feedback as well. Upon completion of the content I would polish visuals, including lighting. Each track had its own set of technical challenges to overcome & Le Mans was no exception. However I formulated creative solutions & worked closely with Engineers to devise appropriate solutions. In the end, the track proved a success as confirmed by actual race car drivers & was often highlighted in press releases.
Of course I was backed by a small team of great artists. As a Track Lead I delegated tasks, provided feedback to both internal & external teams & was responsible for the schedule of my tracks. We were all very proud of the work we accomplished for it paid off with a 92% Metacritic score.
Forza 4
Similar to my work on Forza 3, I directed the development for a set list of tracks. Top Gear was definitely the highlight for me. I had the opportunity to fly to Dunsfold, UK to visit the Top Gear track & studio to gather reference. The complications of this track related to the entire environment being visible while also having to support AI driving in a figure 8. However I developed creative techniques to solve performance issues & worked with Design & Engineering to solve the AI concerns. This track was also used in press releases & became a key track for the Forza 4 title.
Hockenheim on Forza 4 was another amazing track I directed. Below is a link to our press release video demonstrating our “making of the track.” Gathering reference for these tracks was a lot of hard work but also a lot of fun! We achieved a solid rating of 91% on Metacritic.
Forza 4 Garages
In addition to the track work, I created all of the front end environments (Garages) in Forza 4, which I really enjoyed. Yet it did have challenges. At the time, it wasn’t common to utilize a HDR space as a full environment. As with the tracks, these had unique issues to solve. I had to account for varying lighting conditions, surface responses, texel densities, camera parallax as well as distortion in a highly scrutinized environment.
In my opinion, the most successful but also the most difficult space was the Top Gear interior studio. Gathering the reference started with the cleaning up of numerous water bottles by myself & my colleague. But who cares, we were in the studio! I am proud of the results for the era it was created in. The success was evident as it was used significantly for press release photos.
Forza 5
Forza 5 provided a variety of challenges as a launch title for the Xbox One. While taking on new responsibilities as the Environment Lead, I mentored new Track Leads & provided visual feedback. Also in pre-production I hired & on-boarded our Environment Artists which is significant because the majority of the art team is on contract.
I feel the most impactful contribution I made was solving our increased production demands. This was accomplished by expanding our outsourcing capacity. I established a new outsourcing pipeline that improved tracking content & communication between external Art Directors & the internal Biz Dev team. It was necessary to travel to India & Vietnam to help train & support our external partners & to broaden their influence. With our external partners, I directed feedback & provided paint-overs for our external Art Directors through daily emails & weekly meetings.
It was also a great experience to take part in press releases for Forza 5. You can see more in the links below.
Forza 6
Weather & rain were key features added to Forza 6. However these features required a lot of planning in pre-production to balance the work load against the fiscal budgets & schedule. Before I hired & on-boarded the Environment Artists, I had to determine how much work could be done to support the new features. I worked with Biz Dev & the Lighting Supervisor to gather their estimates. Then I included all costs associated with external partners & finally estimated numbers for the remaining work. This was all summed up into a menu list in Excel. The numbers included dollars & work-day estimates, so as long as the selected features per track did not go over the defined millions of dollars, then the Art team would be able to cover the work. This was handed over to the Design team where they confidently made their selection of weather & rain features for each track.
Media
Seattle
Art Manager
I was hired at Wargaming to build a team from the ground up to create AAA quality visuals for an undisclosed project.
As the Art Manager, I directed visuals across environments, lighting & VFX teams. To attain our art team goals for the project, I set forth & managed visual target priorities & defined clear objectives for my team. When appropriate, I composed paint-overs to better communicate visual direction for both my internal team & the external teams. I collaborated with the Art Director coordinating concept support & ensuring visual objectives were aligned.
I facilitated multiple roles until I was able to backfill those responsibilities as I built my team. I defined key production processes & pipeline needs, such as outsourcing & lighting. Daily work included cross-team interaction to support both technical & creative demands as well as ensuring Design priorities were incorporated effectively. It was also a pleasure of mine to represent & speak of my teams successes at sprint reviews to the Senior Leadership team & studio.
Software Technology
Environment Lead
Certainly I am very fond of Nintendo for it is where my career began. I learned a lot from their process to develop great games & I even had the opportunity to fly to the headquarters in Kyoto, Japan where I got to meet Shigeru Miyamoto. I won’t bother with specifics regarding each title I worked on, however I will go over a few highlights from my career while at Nintendo.
After a couple of years as an Environment Artist I was promoted to Environment Lead. Making a launch title for the Gamecube taught me a lot as a first time Art Lead & I made mistakes, which I am not ashamed to mention. The lessons I learned from that experience have helped me throughout my career. Level Designers also taught me a lot & I quickly gained perspective on the challenges they face. The most important lesson I gained from Nintendo was how best to work & support Design while still achieving visual goals. Of course I also learned a lot about building cross-cultural relationships & communication.
Before leaving Nintendo, I took part in the development of 5 titles across 4 different consoles.