05/2015 - 07/2017
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Technical Consulting
Splitting my time working on Deformers, this game's physics were kept to the basics and I took on a more supportive role.
Created a new common collision template for all props that needed basic rigid behavior like getting grabbed, thrown, floating, or colliding.
Taught prop artists the best practices for authoring prop collision meshes and applying the presets I made for them.
Taught environment artists and other technical artists best practices for authoring level collision.
Precision in levels was especially important to ensure dexterity for hand traversal, the main mechanism for navigation.
Authored level collision as needed.
Investigated and helped solve all physics issues as they arose.
Kept artists up to date on new approaches we developed for handling special cases.
Performance Auditing
Audited physics performance for the game. All physics investigations or performance issues came directly to me. Looped in the physics engine team at my discretion if it made sense.
Played through concerning levels using diagnostic tools. Even if physics was under budget, if another department was struggling with performance I'd look for ways to free up cycles on the physics side.
Listed all the physics content problems in the order of importance, noting potential savings, explaining how to optimize them, including screenshots, etc. so that producers could easily create and send tasks to the relevant people.
07/2017 - 10/2021
Animation Rigging
Trained under our lead animation-rigger to make character skinning and a variety of rigged props.
Created prop rigs like sealing blast doors with pistons, telescoping apparatuses, adjustable display mounts, adjustable arms, levers, locking mechanisms, etc.
Character skinned Captain Olivia Rhode's final costume dubbed the "Hero Suit", plus several LODs for androids.
Created Range of Motion (ROM) animations for characters to test the limits of their movements across all of their limbs. This is great to ensure skinning is robust and that characters can perform necessary actions before sending rigs to the animators.
Discussed potential problems and costume adjustments with the art team to problem solve how the Hero Suit costume could work in motion. Itemized and documented my requests with marked up screenshots.
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Physics Rigging
Rigged soft body physics for certain biomass objects, most notably was the "tick" which came in different forms including this one that evolved tentacles.
Prototyped early physics rigs and profiled their behaviors and performance, to inform design and narrative team what we could reasonably do, and how much of it we could do at once.
Art & LODs
Created hundreds of prop LODs throughout the game.
This included authoring new meshes, mapping new UVs, and using RAD tools to reproject textures from the original mesh onto new geometry.
In rare cases that I saw ways to meaningfully optimize the most detailed versions of in game props without making any concessions, I remade a prop or two as its own highest LOD and saved the original as a "source" version.
Made LODs for larger environments including distant space stations using newer RAD tools.
Helped clean up the original art from outsourced artists during crunch where we couldn't afford turn around times, prior to making LODs.
Performance Auditing
Audited physics performance issues in the sequel.
Optimized level collision, free floating props, sliding drawers, holographic controls, etc.
Delegated other tasks back to the people who implemented them with details on how to optimize the content or fix errors.
Special-cased physics setups for more expensive cinematic moments.
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