Scott D. Hill | Technical Art [email protected]

Eight years of bridging the gap between art and code by designing and developing workflows and tools to improve and enhance the development of console and PC games. Facilitating communication between game development designers, artists and engineers to ensure each group’s is equally represented and understood across a development team and that results are met through efficient, smart—not hard—development.

Projects

Army of TWO: The Devil's Cartel (PLAYSTATION 3, XBOX 360) Unannounced 3rd Person Action Game [Cancelled] (PLAYSTATION 3, XBOX 360) HeroCloud Evaluation World Areas (Windows PC: SM3.0, SM2.0a, SM2.0, SM1.4, SM1.1, Fixed Function) Supremacy MMA (PLAYSTATION 3, XBOX 360) UFC Undisputed [Project Pulled] (PLAYSTATION 3, XBOX 360) Stargate Resistance (Windows PC: SM3.0) Stargate Worlds MMO [Cancelled] (Windows PC: SM3.0, SM2.5 SM2.0, SM1.5) Jamdat Sports NBA 2006 (Java, J2ME, BREW) Jamdat Sports NFL 2006 (Java, J2ME, BREW)

Skill Highlights

Engines: 2, 3, HeroEngine, Phyre Engine, and BigWorld. Platforms: PlayStation 3; Xbox 360; Windows PC Software & Tools: 2011, 2011, Adobe Photoshop, NVIDIA CG Tools. Scripting: Maya MEL Specialties: Authoring advanced-looking, inexpensive shaders; evaluation of technical issue solutions; custom workflow tool design and common task improvement; detection of opportunities for performance optimization; engine assessments, including in-depth understanding of system benefits and limitations; documentation and training.

Experience

Technical Artist / Shader Artist Electronic Arts / Visceral Games Montreal Mar 2011 — Feb 2013  Developed primary character shader supporting metal, fabrics, and accessories with detail mapping, diffuse color fresnel, and reflective metals.  Developed secondary character shader for fabrics and accessories with multi-region tinting for variations.  Developed environment shaders, including blending and adding contrast via both vertex and pixel maps for use on surfaces and walls, reducing the number of decals needed to add visual interest.  Employed specialized shader techniques for unique game elements, including fur, gore, vistas, and fountains.  Applied texture saving Specular techniques to add visual interest without complicating development or sacrificing performance.  Created training videos and documentation on engine-specific shader technical for use by company studios worldwide.  Designed and managed shader pipeline and workflows.  Maya Interface Developer for Art Pipeline Tools.  Engaged in performance monitoring during production.

Scott D Hill LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/technicalart Portfolio: http://scottdhill.wordpress.com/experience/samples/

Lead Technical Artist Idea Fabrik Plc (formally Simutronics) / Hero Engine Jan 2010 — Feb 2011  Overhauled existing HeroTools for 3ds Max and Maya, including exporter, asset tools and character tools.  Worked closely with RAD Game Tools on the latest release of Granny 3D for 3ds Max and Maya.  Provided training and demonstrations for potential licensees of Hero Engine.  Performed live demos at trade shows like D.I.C.E and GDC.  Updated Wiki documentation for all art tools, workflows, limitations, and solutions to common issues.  Trained new users on world building workflows in HeroBlade.  Provided art support to multiple studios licensing Hero Engine.  Designed new features for future releases of Hero Engine's HeroBlade editor.  Helped launch HeroEngine with HeroCloud service for indie developers.  International team training in Kiev, Ukraine, and Madrid, Spain.

Shader and Lighting Technical Artist Supervisor Kung Fu Factory Mar 2009 — Dec 2009  Developed .cgfx and .fx shaders for next generation consoles using Shader FX.  Developed inexpensive detailed sweat on skin shader.  Worked with engineers to develop new shaders and production tools.  Worked closely with those responsible for pipeline, modeling, animation, lighting and FX.  Executed R&D and implemented new computer graphic techniques (ie. HDR Lighting and Surface Properties).  Produced technical references and technical constraints documentation.  Created, organized and conducted training sessions on the use of new tools and methods.  Scripted repeatable and unique processes using MaxScript.  Supported art team, solving 3ds Max issues and solving technical production issues.  Acted as game art point of collaborative communication for artists, level designers and programmers.

Lead Technical Artist Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment Nov 2005 — Mar 2009  Designed custom tools for Unreal Engine 3 to speed up game workflows.  Authored custom version of Maya to help 3ds Max users learn Maya faster.  Provided one-key solution to customized GUI based on user’s job title with the Art Department.  Enabled faster tool updates with Maya MEL scripts through Perforce, giving artist very latest shelf buttons, scripts and plugins without having to copy or replace files.  Developed a library of material shaders from which artists created instances.  Designed the pipeline and workflows for game assets’ storage and management.  Trained artist to think like Technical Artist for smoother game development.  Built relationships between multiple departments to ensure tasks completed properly.  Monitored and enforced budgets for texture, material, polygon, collision, and asset counts.  Oversaw the in-house character creation editor and workflow between Character Artist & Engineers.  Integrated faster workflows for artists to bring content from 3D software packages into BigWorld Client Tools.

Quality Assurance Knockabout Games Apr 2005 — Sep 2005  Tracked stats for football playbooks.  Provided feedback for improving user experience.  Tested on multiple devices running Java, J2ME and BREW.

Education

Associates Degree, Computer Animation Full Sail Real World Education Mar 2003 — Aug 2004

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Addendum: Work Highlights

Frostbite 2 Shader Work Environment Shaders  Developed a Shader Library for Environment Art with a wide contrast of surfaces including color metal reflection, color Fresnel for soft fabrics, and no specular for dry wood and earth.  Developed a “diffuse as specular power” shader technique that creates contrast from a diffuse map for specular output, saving texture memory and production time.  Developed a wet shader that darkens and creates contrast out of the diffuse while increasing specular and smoothness, which is the falloff and reflectivity of specular in Frostbite 2. The shader was made “hot swappable,” allowing artists to create wet variations of dry asset.  Developed blend contrast shader for ground areas and walls. This two-texture blending allowed for vertex color blending of a blend map and contrast map (same texture) via vertex color, allowing for 'staining' of the diffuse to make repeating wall or ground area to look more visually interesting, without having to use lots of decals.  Developed rain version of the blend contrast shader, allowing for both wet map and vertex color control of water pooling on the ground.  Developed pixel flex shader for animating tarps and flags, allowing for more fluid motion than vertex animation.

Character Shaders  Developed a triple surface shader for the primary and secondary characters, allowing for leather, fabric and metal surfaces, with support for three tileable detail maps that could be masked out for trim.  Created a “main character shader “ training video showing how to make textures for the triple surface shader and how to control the detail mapping to effect both the specular and the color fresnel.  Developed an NPC shader that allowed for triple tint regions, supporting both Fresnel no-tint masking and no Fresnel no-tint masking, to separate skin and metals so that a wet version could be made for a level with rain. Using this shader, cloth would get “wet,” darkening as it absorbs water, while skin and metals would remain dry. The dry version has Fresnel for the fabrics. The wet version removes the Fresnel while keeping the tinting. The shader allowed for one single material ID with one texture channel for the tint regions, offering full specular and smoothness maps.

Unreal Engine 3 Shader Work Environment Shaders  Created a Parent Materials Library for artists to make Material Instances.  Created a flex shader that allowed artist to paint out gradient mask where foliage would bend for Static Meshes.  Created advanced, see-thru materials (e.g., Fake Lit Transparency for glass or plastic).  Created inexpensive reflective surface material shader.  Created soft particle material shader for particles such as smoke on the highest LOD level (SM3.0).

Fluid Shaders  Created real time version of the Stargate Event Horizon that works in both SM3.0 & SM2.0.  Created oily water shader for polluted lakes and ponds with animated oil rings (SM3.0 & SM2.0).  Created sewer water shader, showing algae buildup along the water edges (SM3.0 & SM2.0).  Created fluid for use in a Sci-Fi world (looked like the contents of a spilled Lava lamp).  Created a swimming pool-colored river shader (SM3.0).  Created fluids material shader for the particles used in water fountains and splashing particles to simulate hundreds of particles within a single particle.

Character Shaders  Created a character material shader to support two-tone tinting via gradient masks.  Created color rim lighting for characters to be used based on the world they were in.

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Unreal Engine 3 Modifications & Tools  Designed a material instance filter tool for artist to select and load parent materials as needed.  Designed a new prefab automated creation tool design for Unreal (naming, placement, guidelines).  Designed a new “Convert Static Mesh to Prefab Tool” that replaced Static Meshes with a matching Prefab.  Improved SM2.0 error messaging within the original material editor so errors appeared in Unreal.  Designed multiple automatic fallback systems for SM2.5, SM2.0, and SM.1.5, as well as a system for how the Material Editor would support fallback material overrides if the automatic fallback did not meet the art style.  Designed a new, searchable debug filter tool for the generic browser (asset library) to find assets requiring fixes.  Designed a new automatic culling distance system based on asset object size and height.  Designed how the video quality game options and presets would impact post process, shader, texture, and draw distance functions.

Unreal Engine 3 Research & Development  To save texture memory yet still trick the player’s eye into seeing a surface as reflective, developed a reflective shader to accept a single, tileable texture, instead of using a cube map made of six textures.  Expanded the character shader to accept a three-channel tint texture, allowing the artist to have full control of where and how much tinting gradient would appear on characters using one DXT1 texture.  To give the illusion of a bulb in a light fixture, developed a light fixture material that would take an artist's emissive map and use it as a mask to render a parallax bump mapping of the same map at a much brighter value.  Developed a rain tech demo to prove what was possible with Kismet and Material Instances within Unreal Engine 3. Learned how to make cloth look as if it was absorbing water, while having hard surfaces show only a thin layer of water, drying over a period of time.

Management  Trained artists on the new shader pipeline  Trained new hires to use Perforce, Unreal, and in-house tools for 3ds Max or Maya.  Trained new Technical Artist to take over the 3ds Max pipeline for integrating art tools.  Trained an intern to become a Technical Artist for the character creation and armor pipeline.  Prioritized feature request and art tasks for the Technical Art team.  Oversaw the in-house character creation editor and workflow between Character Artists and Engineers.  Assigned art bugs to original author of the bug to instill accountability and learning from mistakes.  Managed consistent lines of communication and a policy of collaboration to ensure all team members were on the same page.

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