Unreleased Unreal 5.0 project

The Project that Wasn’t

This work represents a collection of my work, along with some environment art from my excellent coworkers Ian Richards and Jeremy Mattson, that we assembled for the 12th game that Cryptic Studios worked on. Unfortunately, this game will never see the light of day, but I was allowed to share my work and I’m incredibly proud of what the team was able to put together.

I worked with the team to narrow in the art direction under the fantastic Barclay Chantel. We created a fun and visually exciting vertical slice that really brought players to another world.

My main contributions were to worldbuilding, lighting, and ideation of the spaces, but I also did a fair bit of asset creation, both modeling and texturing. Each image will highlight my specific contribution to the scene.

Dungeons & Dragons

Digital D&D

I was honored to join the Digital D&D team as the sole environment artist on the team. We prototyped the Digital D&D Virtual Tabletop in Unreal 4 and Unreal 5. My work was focused on early look development, lighting, worldbuilding, asset creation, camera choices, modular pipeline development, and learning how to develop in Unreal Engine. As of October, 2023, only closed Alphas have been made available for users to play, so I cannot share many screenshots here, but there have been two marketing videos released that feature my content.

Magic: Legends

Working on Magic was a great experience for me. I grew as a lighting artist and worldbuilder, as well as learned how to better critique and respond to feedback about the art we were making. I served as a thought leader on the environment team, helping push the team towards production and eventually shipping the game to Open Beta. Sadly, the project was shuttered and sunset on November 1st, 2021 and is no longer available to play, but I am still proud to have worked on the team. Below are some examples of my work.

Tazeem

I created the tileset for Tazeem’s jungle areas, so almost all of Tazeem is built on a foundation of my work. I was also responsible for lighting and worldbuilding the first story mission, and worked with other artists to create a skirmish mission and the main social hub. Additionally, I created most of the vistas across the overworld and worked on early lighting work for the coral areas encountered near the end of the zone.

Shiv

My contributions to Shiv were limited to mostly lighting and atmospherics work. I worked on the first story mission for the region with the talented Micao Penaflor. I also lit and created the skyfile for the Mana Rig level, which was a pretty great experience to work on such an iconic location for MTG.

Gavony

For Gavony I did some world-building and lighting work on the overworld and was responsible for creating the first story mission for players in the dreadful plane of Innistrad. I enjoyed the challenge of creating a level that focused on horror and I had a blast exploring how to create the mood we wanted players to experience as they navigated through a town cursed by an evil hag.

Tolaria

For Tolaria I was tasked with creating the first story mission that players would run through. We added a lot of interactible and dynamic environment pieces and I think it played as one of the better story missions for Tolaria. I also got work on some some more FX-like textures and materials for the dynamic pieces, which was a lot of fun to figure out.

I was also responsible for making some character assets for this region. I created the camarid spawning bed assets that are scattered about as environment pieces or used as part of a spell characters can cast that summons camarid critters.

Benalia

For Benalia I worked on initial lighting direction and propping out the central safe area of the overworld map. I also worked on the final neighborhood of the overworld map, but it underwent constant iteration and was touched by so many artists I wouldn’t know where to point out my contributions at this point, other than the lighting and atmosphere.

The Meditation Realm

I was responsible for creating two levels in the medidation realm. I created the tutorial level, where players are introduced to the multiverse and the world boss fight arena, where players could challenge bosses from across the multiverse. I really enjoyed creating such a strange and magical place.

Neverwinter

M17 - Uprising

This was my final module with Neverwinter before moving on to Magic: Legends. I was responsible for working with the Trial team to design the experience for players. We made a very dynamic event for the Mad Mage, and the environment plays a big part. I was responsible for the lighting, world-building, ideation, asset creation, and texturing, along with the technical engine work to make the environment changes happen. I also made a small addition to the Expedition feature in the form of a Stardock map where players can fight a Neothelid.

M16 - Undermountain

For M16 I was back again on dungeon duty! This time creating the domain of Halaster Blackcloak in the Dungeon of the Mad Mage! It was a lot of fun designing things to feel a bit mad. I also worked on the Expeditions feature which was a group of levels that could be played repeatedly and would appear in different orders and different lighting scenarios/moods to enhance repeatability (check out my blog post here). I was a main contributor to the level design of both the dungeon and the Expedition levels, and I really enjoyed getting to work on such an iconic part of D&D lore.

Neverwinter

M15 - The Heart of Fire

In M15 I worked on a few maps for the Acqusition’s Inc. content and created a few props including a version of the Moloch Statue from the 1978 AD&D Players Handbook cover (dreams do come true). I also worked on the Professions Workshop map and all of the versions. Players could improve different sections of the map as they leveled up their professions, so there were four versions of each profession’s workstation. I included images of the worst and best below, with the stages in between just included less props and more grunge.

M14 - Ravenloft

In M14 I was responsible for creating the Barovia zone from the infamous domain of dread, Ravenloft. I worked heavily with design in creating the level design for this space, since it had to double as both zone and instances for repeatable quests. I talk a bit about that process in my blog post for the level. It also had two time-of-day settings for day and night, with different gameplay consequences depending on the time of day. I created all of the terrain textures used on the map, and a few hero props for the space. I also worked closely with the FX team to create a wall of mist that turns the player around when they enter and spits them back out into the zone. I had a lot of fun working on this zone, but it was one of the most stressful points in my career, as we were extremely understaffed on the environment team during this production cycle.

M13 - Lost City of Omu

For M13 I was responsible for creating the Trial called The Cradle of the Death God. I took on the entirety of the project, working with design to come up with the narrative and level design, and I did the vast majority of the FX work, along with creating all of the assets for the level, and all of the lighting and atmospherics. I even made a character for the pulsating umbilical cords that players have to destroy. It was a lot of fun to serve as a one-man-art-team for the project, and it was helped by having so much momentum from working on similar things for the dungeon in M12 that leads into the trial. The trial has a very dynamic environment with an elevator that descends into the bowels of the Tomb of the Nine Gods. I worked with design to implement that sort of dynamic behavior so that it could adapt to different groups playthrough speeds. This was one of my favorite projects when I think back on my time with Neverwinter. I wrote about blog post about it here, and there was a video trailer made that shows off the level in action.

Neverwinter

M12 - Tomb of Annihilation

For M12 I was responsible for creating the biggest dungeon in Neverwinter to date, the Tomb of the Nine Gods. I got to create the asset for the Green Devil Mask from the famed Tomb of Horrors (which makes a repeat in the Chult book). The dungeon included a complex series of traps that could swap orders and arrangements for increased replayability. The dungeon was planned to eventually connect to the trial that would be released in a later module. We created a final boss fight with a dynamic environment where the players felt as if a giant spectral Acererak slammed the platform down. I have a blog post about it here.

I also created most of the assets (models, textures, and materials) that were used in the dungeon kit in this module and others.

M11 - The Cloaked Ascendancy

I was responsible for reworking the old Spellplague Caverns dungeon into a new experience. I also created three different instances, one for each of the evil wizards. Additionally, I helped with the technical implementation of the Illusionist’s Gambit skirmish, where we created the illusion that the environment shifts around players and changes as the fight progressed.

I also got to write two blogs for the module, one about the dungeon and one about the skirmish. They really go behind the scenes in how the spaces were created. I think they’re worth a read!

Neverwinter

M10b - Sea of Moving Ice

I was acting in a support artist role for this module. I created a small level and two big hero props for the milestone. The production schedule was compacted for this release and I also spent time bug-fixing and polishing the zone and dungeon from M10.

M10 - Storm King’s Thunder

It was during this module that I created my first adventure zone for Neverwinter, Cold Run. There were some moments that felt special in the zone, though I know I’d do things differently if I made it now =) I also created my first dungeon for the game, Fangbreaker Island (I got to come up with the name!). It was a fun experience to work with all the different teams responsible for creating a dungeon. I wrote a bit about that in my blog post for the game. Environment artists on Neverwinter have a lot of level design responsibilities as well. I learned a lot in that regard this module.

M9 - The Maze Engine

For M9 I worked to create a new April Fool’s event where the players are turned into minis on a giant game table and NPCs from the game sit around as players. D&D inside of a D&D game. The environment was based on a prop used in the Penny Arcade Acquisition Inc. event. I spoke with the physical prop maker and had a blog post about it. You can read about it here.

Neverwinter

M7 - Strongholds

I worked with the Neverwinter team at the beginning of the Strongholds module helping establish an art direction and asset kit for creating the stronghold map. I left partway through production to work on an unannounced project within the studio.

M6 - Elemental Evil

This represents some of my earliest professional work. I came in halfway through the module’s production and was tasked with finishing some levels and creating assets that were needed to finish the space. During this time I learned how to use the Cryptic Engine, started learning true production practices and pipelines, and really just dived in to making environment art for games.