I make games look great.
I lead lighting and VFX teams on AAA action-adventure games. I’m currently an Associate Art Director at That's No Moon.
Previously: Gears 5, Gears of War 4, Space Marine, Dawn of War II.
Vancouver, Canada.Background image: Crossfire, a work in progress at That’s No Moon.
Scroll down to see my work.
Here’s some of my work.
Gears 5 & Hivebusters
At The Coalition I led a team of real-time VFX artists, senior and junior. I also crafted Kait's hallucinations and helped develop the self-healing ice system. Unreal Engine 4.
Shape of the World
My first game, built from scratch over several years. A serene first-person explorer where the world grows around you. Released on Steam in 2018.
Official website. Unreal Engine 4. Sound and music by Brent Silk.
Videos
I film life and videogames and cut it to soundtracks. It's a way to reinforce good memories and stay creative.
Watch them on YouTube.
My history of game development
If you don’t count my high school years of making Quake maps, I started my career creating the front-end and heads-up-display for Dawn of War II (2009) before trying my hand at VFX on Space Marine (2011).
Concepts for the impacts of various weapons in Space Marine (2011).
I contributed VFX and lighting to Company of Heroes 2 (2013) before moving on to Black Tusk Studios to build stunning (unannounced) action sequences.
The studio refreshed as The Coalition and I created visual effects on Gears of War: Ultimate Edition (2015) and Gears of War 4 (2016) before taking the lead of the VFX team on Gears 5 (2019) and its campaign DLC. I’ve had the pleasure of working on gameplay, cinematics, single-player, and multiplayer. I have created concept art, particle systems, scripted prototypes, and hand-drawn animations.
A concept for the Hivebusters (2020) final boss - a giant jungle bird who I suggested could launch a chemically reactive loogie from its beak. That’s exactly what we did.
Meanwhile, in my spare time I was piecing together my own game, Shape of the World (2018). This gave me a chance to concept the game at the highest level, and work on every element of the game, from the environment to the player’s movement.
Shape of the World (2018), a relaxing, colorful, musical wander through forests that grow as you explore.
Still at The Coalition, I worked in the role of Associate Art Director for two years on an unannounced project. With a focus on environments and VFX, I worked very closely with the Art Director to expand and clarify the vision.
Today, I work at Maxis as an Art & VFX Director. You’ll hear more on this soon!
I loved crafting these little “nightmare” sequences in Gears 5 with post-process effects that carefully highlighted the focus and obscured the rest.
I birthed the first prototype of this incredible shattering and re-healing ice floor, and worked closely with my team to shepherd it through many trials until it was beautiful, performant, and bug-free.
I enjoyed pushing this waterfall in Hivebusters to have a beautiful subsurface effect, excellent interaction with the pool, and the ability to pour across the camera lens.
One of the more satisfying rewards in Shape of the World is reaching a triangle gate and shooting into a new biome. The experience is a composite of player movement, environment layout, changing palettes, individual growing actors, critters, vfx, sound, and music.
Remembering to play!
That’s me and my kids Bowen and Sage. I forgot what the world looked like through a child’s eyes before I had them. They keep me playing - Lego, skateparks, Halloween displays, whatever!
