I have been fortunate to have some of my work formally recognized.
for the short animation "Please Don't Make Me A Joke" (Project completed Dec 2007)
Sponsored by Prof. Stephen Hilyard
Best Weapon, 4th place (Sep 16, 2008) for the CodaSword mutator
Coda Sword featuring an original 3rd person camera, procedural sword attack animations and gameplay, particle effects integrated into normal UT3 gameplay.
Best New Vehicle, 4th place (Feb 20, 2009) for the CodaMule vehicle
Ridable horse vehicle featuring lifelike quadruped animation mixed with procedural animation, material effects, jumping capability, physically simulated rider integrated into normal UT3 gameplay.
Best Non FPS Mod, 4th place (August 4, 2009) for the CodaMod total conversion
Total conversion for UT3 featuring highly polished net code implemented in UnrealScript, a mature set of development tools written in Python for Maya, as well as original magic and sword combat systems.
Announced as a finalist and awaiting placement results for Best Non FPS Mod and Best Art for a Mod categories
Profile
I've been an artist since childhood, a modder since high school, and graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Madison with a degree in Art. In my class work, I formally developed a solid grasp of desgin fundamentals alongside traditional life drawing, computer modeling, and animation. In 2005, I formed the independent game studio StolenNotebook with several of my friends from the Computer Science Department. On this team, I was responsible for the game's design and artwork.
My StolenNotebook partners and I shared an apartment which facilitated a 24/7 lifestyle of collaboration and development. I established excellent skills for communicating with the programmers on our team concerning the game's design, organization, and visual style. As an artist constantly surrounded by programmers, I gained a strong technical foundation and insight into many of the engineering aspects of game making. This has become invaluable for my more recent projects.
After graduation, I was able to focus my energies full-time on a modification for Unreal Tournament 3 called CodaMod. This project found success in several competitions and provided me with the financial resources to continue working on game projects full time. By the end of Coda's development, my responsibilities had widened to include implementation of all gameplay code, in addition to the game design and art requirements.
Our development team was exceptionally small, consisting only of myself and fellow StolenNotebook veteran Tony Magro. Coda’s achievements in the UT3 and UDK community have frequently gone unrivaled, including being the only total conversion to successfully port to PlayStation3. Completing these goals required a devoted lifestyle of long hours for months on end.
After Coda I got a full time software development job at Menlo Innovations and moved on to several smaller projects in my free time. Continuing my work with Tony Magro as TwoGear LLC, I have been contributing to a small iPhone game using Epic's UDK. My current personal project is a playful zombie survival game inspired by the board game Pandemic. It runs from the GoogleAppEngine within a Faceboook application and features a 3D real-time networked action. I hope to launch both titles by the end of 2011.
Gaming
Like art, my love of gaming began when I was a child.
I really love a well made game of any genre. Games steeped in narrative such as Final Fantasy (7), Metal Gear, and Shenmue. Or titles which remind us of gaming's artistic potential as "Shadow of the Colossus" or "Katamari Damacy" were able to do so successfully.
I undoubtedly spend most of my gaming time with competitive multiplayer games. I love games from the Street Fighter and Guilty Gear series, as well as collectable card games from Wizard of the Coast and table top games from Games Workshop. However, StarCraft is easily my most heavily played game. Even today there are very few rivals to it's balance at high level play. I’ve sought to refine and express many of the lessons I’ve learned from playing these games in my own game projects.
More recently, I've picked up Riot Game's wonderful League of Legends with several of my old gaming friends.