G A M E S
Machine Zone is a midcore mobile gaming studio which had massive successes with titles like "Mobile Strike" and "Game of War." They built these games with their own engine which was tuned for 2d isometric style mobile games. I was brought on board to help this studio transition over to more sophisticated 3d real time mobile games. Working with the engine team, I helped specify a road map that would provide them with key functionality that the engine would need to create our more ambitious 3d games. Our first release with initial enhancements to the engine was Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire. One of our fun enhancements was a full 3d dungeon to take heroes in to fight monsters. It featured more complex animated models, richly lit environments with 3d lights, more complex shaders and true shadows.
Early Explorations in UX: this is a mock up I did to simulate how a hero card for a game could look if we married the render camera for the scene to the gimbal of the phone. The depth this gives the piece as you turn your phone is pretty compelling. I created this interactive piece with my team's custom editor which was designed for our engine.
The next title we worked on, which showed off the culmination of all our enhancements to the engine and to our art creation pipeline, was CrystalBorne: Heroes of Fate. This mobile CRPG title showcased a full real time 3d game that had more advanced lighting techniques, physically based rendering, more sophisticated VFX and far more complex 3d scenes for mobile.
I worked with my team to build an entire 3d art pipeline to tackle this ambitious project. The results of this effort led to a launch where both Google's and Apple's app stores featured us for worldwide launch.
I worked for several years at Gree International where I was the Director in charge of the 3d Content teams and the Technical Artists responsible for building the asset content pipelines for the games. We designed solutions for Unity 3d, Cocos 2d, HTML 5 and several in-house game engines. What follows below shows some of the more recent titles we worked on.
Blackbird was an unreleased RTS MMO mobile game that we designed using the Unity Game Engine. I was responsible for the teams producing all of the 3d content and technical art integration for the game. Early development of this game involved the team creating paper prototypes to simulate game play which evolved into us standing up a 3d prototype for demonstration.
In order to support the creation of over 100 unique game levels, I supervised the team that built a system of kit pieces that the game designers could use to develop their game levels. In turn, these same maps could be auto-converted into finished game maps by the environments team for set dressing and lighting.
I also created the lighting for these environments that I baked into the static set pieces and created light probes for everything else.
Call to Arms was a 2d isometric game developed in Cocos2d that utilized assets from a full 3d rendering pipeline. We developed a fully integrated system to from 3d Maya renderings to 2d sprite sheets. It was a complex layer-based system, designed to maximize the amount of art and animation we could fit in memory on the mobile devices.
I introduced a linear lighting workflow to the studio, in order to provide a more realistic quality of light for the game.
The models used exaggerated proportions and very simple textures. I created a kit of materials that used physically based lighting to create a very clean sophisticated look. All the lighting and shading for this game were done by me.
NFL Shuffle was one of the card collection mobile game using the HTML5 game engine we developed. I worked with the Art Director to provide many of the polished 3d renderings used in these types of games.
Optimus was the second asset review system I designed. However, this time I was able to partner with another engineer and he did all the amazing programming to bring it to life. This system was put in place at the studio and all games used it for daily art review, tracking and annotations.
App Icons was something I helped out on for several of our games. I would create proof sheets with the initial posing, camera and lensing for the piece. Do renders and then hand them off the final selection to a 2d illustrator for final paintover.
C I N E M A T I C S
To enhance the quality of work at Gree, I produced a number of animated video for our games. These were used as E3 sizzle pieces, app store videos, in-game cinematics and other marketing channels.
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I budgeted, scheduled, produced, staffed, conceptualized and delivered a number of pieces in my three years at the studio. Specifically, for CTA Play Free I teamed up with an animator and we did this whole piece between the two of us.
For this piece ​I teamed up with an animator and the two of us did the entire piece. Together we story boarded it, he then animated and I took care of the rest.
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Working with my team we composed this piece as an intro to the Book of Ashes​. I provided materials and lighting for the piece and supported the tech for the book opening.
For this piece ​I teamed up with a graphic designer and we composed the entire piece from concept to final render.
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