unreal engine 5

unreal blueprints

niagara real-time vfx

gameplay programming

Gameplay Prototyper

VFX Artist

Concept Artist

Prototyping: 3

VFX: 3

Art: 3

Studio: 20+

Developed multiple gameplay mechanic rapid prototypes to demonstrate potential uses for the game's pre-established control scheme, helping to establish the gameplay loop.

Playtested finalised gameplay mechanics across multiple departments - providing design feedback on the gameplay experience and technical feedback on found bugs.

Participated in team meetings and brainstorming sessions to narrow down a visual style while producing a style guide.

Experimented with various VFX styles (such as hand-drawn 2D animations) to aid style visual development.

Created multiple impact VFX for collisions between the game ball and various types of hits and objects.

Created a cloud system for environmental VFX

Participated in team meetings and brainstorming sessions to narrow down a visual style while producing an art bible.

Produced concept art for the game's level design to aid visual development and solidify an environmental theme.

Produced concept art for the game's various level objects, narrowing down the 'British beach-inspired' theme.

Created and iterated on concept art for the designs of the game's menu UI and HUD, redesigning all the concepts after my original pitch was rejected.

Worked with the design lead to customise the provided UI wireframes and implement the finalised menu UI design

Boosted team morale by providing goods such as stickers - out of pocket - to celebrate meeting the production deadline.

Filled skills shortages that relieved pressure from the Art and VFX teams, allowing them to catch up and help the team release a 3-time TIGA Award-nominated game within the strict 8-week timeframe.

Utilised my experience with dealing with commission-client briefs (from my freelancing career) to communicate with the design department and stakeholders about my current concepts for the game's UI. Took on their feedback to produce a second wave of concepts that were immediately accepted.

Optimised my skills by streamlining workflows to deliver concepts, prototypes and assets with short turnarounds.

Successfully adapted to different team dynamics while moving between departments, integrating into each team and helping to raise department morale.

Visual developement/R&D (depending on the current department) was lacking in some areas, leading to concepts and prototypes needing to be redone due to a miscommunication on expectations.

Being someone who could fill multiple roles meant I was needed by multiple leads, leading to discussions to be had about time comprise between departments while also dealing with the early stages of burnout.

Lack of in-engine testing during the beginning stages of VFX and concept art development led to avoidable issues where work needed to be scrapped or redone because the concept worked on paper but failed when tested against the rest of the game/in a 3D environment.

The project reinforced my confidence in how quickly I can adapt to new tools, workflows and teams; learning more about Blueprints, Unreal VFX, lighting and set-dressing either for the first time or done for a project this size.

Constant communication and quick team meetings/check-ins ensure a steady production pace by making sure members stay on top of tasks.

When it comes to being the team member ready to assist bottlenecked departments, expectations must be managed to ensure I am not overloaded with work and burnt out.

Concepts need to be tested in-engine as soon as possible to understand if they work on a 'physical' level. The issues with the first wave of UI concepts only became apparent once the finalised assets had begun being imported into the engine and added to the HUD. Fortunately, this was midway through production, and so there was time to do a second wave. But the additional effort could have been mitigated if the concept art had been tested in-engine as a temporary texture.

Inter-department and team dynamics are as vital as technical skills when it comes to collaborative success. The project reinforced the importance of being a good team member as - compared to my Cathullu project - it showed me how a fun, collaborative environment can be a great motivator, and approachable, dedicated teammates can alleviate the stress of the high workloads and short turnaround times.

The quick delivery times forced me to confront my understanding of my techniques as rules needed to be broken, pruned or altered to provide a quality result at the speed the leads expected. Working on this project reinforced productive habits, a faster workflow, and the confidence to not second-guess myself.

unreal engine 4

unreal blueprints

niagara real-time vfx

gameplay programming

Gameplay Programmer

VFX Artist

Concept Artist

Tech: 8

VFX: 2

Concept Art: 5

Studio: 30

Programmed and maintained the blueprints for gameplay obstacles such as the explosive mines and their child variants.

Helped create and maintain a backend system to connect the cooking recipes listed in the data tables to the game UI's.

Helped create a modular method of instantiating UI elements for recipes, allowing their layouts to be programmatically generated from the data within the data table instead of being manually created. This gave the design team greater flexibility with the range of recipe varieties.

Participated in QA testing and bug-reporting, contributing to bug-report documents and tracking down the cause of bugs so that the relevant party can be notified with as much valuable information as possible.

Participated in weekly team meetings, providing updates on my current task completion status, and raising awareness on any known issues, bugs, or production concerns.

Alleviated the VFX bottleneck by taking over from the solo VFX artist and completing their tasks when they weren't able to due to adjacent module time commitments.

Implemented and completed the unfinished Day/Night cycle system, including adding minor optimisations and fixes such as replacing the various 'On-tick' logic.

Implemented the VFX artist's 'Buayancy' component and set-dressed the overworld scene.

Handled and created the overworld lighting while also syncing it to the Day/Night cycle.

Created a death transition screen and resulting VFX that would cover the screen in a 'SpongeBob-inspired' wipe of bubbles while the game switched back to the overworld.

Sat in and participated in Art Team meetings, collecting notes to report back to the lead VFX artist, who was unable to attend some meetings due to other module requirements.

meetings and brainstorming sessions to narrow down a visual style.

Took initiative to fill gaps where team members became inactive.

Alleviated the Concept Art bottleneck by taking over the responsibility of designing Cthulhu when the previous artist was removed from the role, and the rest of the Concept Art and Art Teams were too busy to create the concept currently being waited on by the Character Artist and Animator.

Communicated with the character artist, animator, and lead designer to form a brief for the Cthulhu character design, as I was told to start from scratch.

Create the character designs and the turnarounds for the game antagonist: Cthulhu.

Created the game logo and finalised the design for the team logo.

Created thumbnails for the various game posters.

Rendered 2 game posters and illustrated (sketch to render) the last game poster.

Boosted team morale by providing goods such as stickers - out of pocket - to celebrate meeting the production deadline.

Filled skills shortages that relieved pressure from the Art and VFX teams, allowing them to catch up and ensure the game met its strict 8-week timeframe.

Utilised my experience with character design and illustration (from my freelancing career) to communicate with and aid the art and VFX enviroments.

Optimised my skills by streamlining workflows to deliver concepts, prototypes and assets with short turnarounds.

Successfully adapted to different team dynamics while moving between departments, integrating into each team and helping to raise department morale.

Guided an idea generation session to develop the initial pitch for the game and participated in the pitch presentation shown to lecturers.

Communication between departments was not consistent, leading to an inconsistent understanding of what was currently being worked on and in what blueprint.

Lack of a finalised Game Design Document meant departments were not clear on what features had/had not been scrapped, leading to unimplemented, scrapped, and wasted work.

Additionally, the lack of a finalised Game Design Document at the beginning of production meant that features were being added unbeknownst to the Technical Department, leading to tensions and a slow breakdown of communication.

An imbalanced team hindered production as departments were either overstaffed (8+) or understaffed (solo member), leading to bottlenecks.

Communication within the team began to break down towards the end of the project due to overlapping module deadlines and increasing burnout, leading to issues such as work getting overwritten as multiple team members were in a rush to work on the same blueprints at once.

Being someone who could fill multiple roles meant I was needed by multiple leads, leading to discussions to be had about time comprise between departments while also dealing with the early stages of burnout.

Choosing a blueprint-only project forced a bottleneck as designers were unable to access the framework until the 2nd half of development to reduce the number of people in-engine and prevent accidental overwrites of the Technical Department's progress.

Sacrifices had to be made on the tools of choice, as Unreal Engine was chosen due to the majority of the department specialising in the engine, despite the majority of the Technical Department specialising in Unity. This created a hurdle that affected morale, speed, and output.

The project reinforced my confidence in how quickly I can adapt to new tools, workflows and teams; learning more about Blueprints, Unreal VFX, lighting and set-dressing either for the first time or done for a project this size.

The entire studio must have a central resource to maintain an aligned understanding of the project scope, its current progress across departments, and to stay engaged.

Constant communication and quick team meetings/check-ins are needed to ensure members are staying on top of tasks.

Inter-department dynamics are as vital as technical skills when it comes to collaborative success. Unfriendly departments can lead to loss of motivation and communication.

Frustration and burnout can be common, especially with tight deadlines, but the key to progress is to learn how to let those frustrations fuel my work, along with stepping back to calm my mind and motivate myself by focusing on the bigger picture during burnout.

When it comes to being the team member ready to assist bottlenecked departments, expectations must be managed to ensure I am not overloaded with work and burnt out. I can't do everything alone, and need to be cautious not to develop the habit of continuously overworking myself.

The quick delivery times forced me to confront my understanding of my techniques as rules needed to be broken, pruned or altered to provide a quality result at the speed the leads expected. Working on this project reinforced productive habits, a faster workflow, and the confidence to not second-guess myself.

unity

c#

tools development

Unity

C#

SDL

C++

game engine creation

porting

gameplay programming

PC

The Evercade (Linux)

C++

SDL

unreal engine 4

Niagara real-time vfx

monogame

c#

C#

Monogame