Experience

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  Soaring Pixels Games

  • Production Director, Technical & Creative (Founder) - (Unity, UE5, PC, Xbox 2024, Playstation 2024)

    • Sep 2018 - Present

    -Directed all research and production efforts across Tech, Design, and Art for 3 productions in UE5 and Unity.-Soaring Pixels Games is a studio focused on creating products and experiences that push on technical boundaries other studios are hesitant to push on. Its debut game, Breakwaters, has the most advanced real-time ocean simulation in gaming history which interacts with a procedural open world survival game and massive roaming Titans.-I built Soaring Pixels Games from the ground up. Pitched ideas, acquired funding, hired industry leading talent, and directed an efficient team to produce a massive game. Breakwaters is shipping on PC and Consoles in early 2024 with Single player and Online co-op.

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  Microsoft

  • Sr. Tech Art Director & Prototyping Director (Custom Engine, Windows Mixed Reality (VR) 3D worlds)

    • Aug 2017 - Sep 2018

    -Part of the larger Platform organizations Sr. Leadership Team representing Content & Design.-Directed the 3D content & design production & prototypes of Windows Mixed Reality 3d world elements. This work included Design, Interaction, Visuals, and Content pipelines for world elements. -Managed world wide external orgs responsible for content teams working on WMR worlds experiences and related user engagement content.-During production I was part of the "strike team" of senior members that would work on corporate presentations and conference stage keynote presentations. These included worldwide Microsoft presentations, the launch presentation, and large scale "secret" press presentations and VIP presentations.-Planned content and budget considerations across multiple Windows Mixed Reality segments for multi year planning. I was involved in Sr and Jr employee hiring across the larger org and was the final decision on my group's hires.-After Microsoft acquired Havok to use its editor and engine for WMR, I worked with the Havok engine team on its near term and multi year development plan for content & design tools/pipeline for use in Windows Mixed Reality and Windows. -Since Windows Mixed Reality was shipping as part of Windows on the Windows Update release cadence, I worked directly with the Windows architects on how our team's content & design production would integrate into their processes.

  • Sr. Technical Art Director & Prototyping Lead (Hololens (AR, XR, MR, VR), Unity)

    • Apr 2016 - Aug 2017

    -Managed prototypers in researching and building design prototypes, UX research, and demos to further the platforms design knowledge.-Contributed to multiple stage demos/experiences used across Announce, Launch, Build, and other large product related events.-Shipped HoloStudio and RoboRaid on Hololens as a 1st party title available at launch.-Directed ongoing tech art production plans & budgets for the larger organization across multiple teams.-Built custom visual and content systems including a custom Ambient Occlusion system for low power & high fps devices (HoloStudio), core shaders used across product, “natural reaction” design systems for library interface (HoloStudio), Signed Distance Field UI line system for clean stereoscopic rendering (RoboRaid), collaborated with programmers on low power device wall “stencil” method (RoboRaid)

  • Tech Art Director & Sr. Prototyper (Hololens (AR, XR, MR, VR), Unity)

    • Mar 2012 - Apr 2016

    -I joined Microsoft to work on Hololens when it was a secret project in the basement of a building. At the time there was one content team for which I was hired to lead the tech art production. Over time the organization grew to around 7 small teams working on approximately 12 different projects and a much larger number of prototypes and external collaborations.-Our studio shipped multiple key projects for Hololens including RoboRaid and HoloStudio, along with being a core group contributing to the ship quality of the Hololens hardware and platform.-As the teams grew, my work evolved to collaborate and advise the other production teams and external teams. Near the end of my time in this org, I spent about 50% of my time working directly with the other groups advising on their work, and on custom projects for external corporations.

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  Vertex Horizon

  • Seattle

  • Product Director, Programmer, (Founder)

    • 2008 - 2017
    • Seattle

    Vertex Horizon was founded to create advanced technology and to make it easily available for other studios to integrate into their projects without requiring a large technical understanding. These projects included:-Fluid Sim: A tool to create realtime 2d fluid interactions which could be dropped into a Unity project easily. It has been used in various projects, including in a museum installation which allows users to live interact with the sim. The fluid sim was designed for bi-directional interaction allowing objects to contribute to the 2d simulation and the simulation to move 3d objects.-Editor Paint: A tool which allowed for realtime 2d and 3d painting of textures from inside of the Unity editor. The tool also provided multiple raytraced and rasterized simulations which could bake unique texture information normally not available from other tools. Some of the unique data was: object thickness, raytraced emissive light from surface textures, raytraced ambient occlusion, 3d voirinoi, and positional and directional gradients. The simulations had all been gpu accelerated and in some cases used a custom ray tracing setup. The main advantage is the user could see the result of their effort on any shader using the editor's real-time lighting. Multiple objects could also be painted on or have simulations run on them at the same time. The editing interface allowed a full Photoshop style layer system with blending modes.-A side project from this effort which I have not shared with the world yet is a method of creating Lightfields that works on any shaped object and on deforming animated objects (skeletons, displacement shaders, etc). Although memory intensive, it allows for a relatively fast look up of the data stored in it. My goal one day is to complete this work and share it as a public paper.

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  Airtight Games

  • Tech Artist, Tech Art Lead, Tech Art Director (Unreal, PC, Xbox, Playstation)

    • 2003 - Feb 2012

    I joined Airtight games as the second employee and was part of the group which grew the studio into a 60+ person org. Airtight Games made AAA games for consoles and PC primarily using the Unreal Engine.-Dark Void was the first title I worked on at Airtight Games. It was a small, tight-knit team where everyone pitched in and put a huge amount of effort into the game. Early on I created content for the Dark Void prototype including working on Ageia PhysX demos for industry leading physics and fluid sim tech.-Over time the company made multiple game prototypes, some of which received funding but ultimately didn't ship. One of which included a "godzilla" city destruction system I developed that would allow users a very high level of destruction detail while fitting withing the limits of the ps3 and xbox of that era.-The final project I worked on at Airtight Games was Quantum Conundrum. I was a senior member (TAD) on the project and consulted on the other game that was in production at the same time at Airtight Games. One of my core contributions to the project was the adoption of the realtime bounce light system and the production of the dimension shifting tech.

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  Sony Online Entertainment

  • 3d Artist/Tech Artist (Unreal, PC, Xbox, Playstation)

    • 2005 - 2005

    SOE had a studio in Seattle working on a spy-themed MMO shooter called The Agency. I was brought in on a contract from Airtight Games.I contributed to the character clothing rule system during my time there.