Adrian Woods : Senior Technical Artist / Technical Art Lead
Resume Hard Copy torgo3000@hotmail.com Linked In

Demo Reels:

Procedural Worlds
Procedural Worlds Shaders and Effects Procedural Worlds

Resume:

Information:
    I am a self-motivated, fast-learning and broad-skilled Technical Artist specializing in procedural content solutions. I also enjoy creating tools and pipelines that free up artists to be creative while enhancing visual quality, reducing bugs and reducing costs.
Skills and proficiencies:
    3d Studio Max, Photoshop, MaxScript, Powershell, C#, javascript, Havok, Maya, HLSL (writing custom code and node based editors), modeling, texturing, rigging and animation, procedural geometry, special effects, build systems (MSBuild in particular), audio engineering, understanding and translating complex systems, basic Python, basic lua
Microsoft Game Studios 2000 - 2012
Cog in the Machine July 2012
  • Lead designer, Audio design and engineer, Audio programming for 2 week Windows 8 app – javascript and HTML 5
Technical Art Lead for Flight Game Studio 2009 - 2012
  • Prototyped and helped develop a procedural content system that enabled high-fidelity, hugely variable content with very low performance cost
  • Worked closely with the art director and art leads to prototype and develop the look and feel of shaders in Flight
  • Created and maintained an art production pipeline in 3ds Max using MaxScript and dotnet integration with internal tools and libraries
  • Created additional tools in C# and powershell, including a Photoshop Dashboard using C# and Photoshop COM
  • Created course content and training for 3rd party developers as well as created an external environment that helped enable vendors to use our full internal toolset and build system
Technical Art Lead for Aces Game Studio 2006 - 2009
  • Created and documented the external 3d art pipeline SDK, enabling an add-on community of thousands
  • Researched, developed and prototyped new visuals and technologies
  • Created and maintained a multi-title art production pipeline in 3ds Max using MaxScript with dotnet integration and the Max SDK
  • Sole special effects artist for the studio
  • Helped staff up a technical art team of 4 people
  • Gold Star award recipient in 2009
Animation Wrangler for Forza Motorsport 2 2006
  • Edited and looped mocap animation as well as hand animating new loops for crowds
Technical Art Lead for Flight Simulator X 2004 - 2006
  • Created technical art team and maintained art production pipeline in 3ds Max
  • Managed external vendors who created over 1000 assets
  • Managed the technical art and animation teams
  • Developed an internship program with the Art Institutes of Seattle and Denver which benefitted both the students and the studio
Environment Art Lead for Flight Simulator 2004 2002 - 2004
  • Helped with concept, development and created all art tools for industry-standard, real-time cloud and weather system
  • Managed production of thousands of assets
  • Responsible for look and feel of environments for Flight Simulator 2004
Environment Consultant for Combat Flight Simulator 3 2001 - 2003
Environment Artist Combat Flight Simulator 2 and Flight Simulator 2000 - 2001
Crave Entertainment 1997-1999
Environment and animation artist for Shadow Madness 1997 - 1999
  • Created pre-rendered background images using Power Animator
  • Researched and prototyped the 3ds Max animation pipeline
  • Animation for world characters and battle sequences
Teaching and Lectures:
Siggraph : "User Created Content for Video Games" 2008
    Panel member for a discussion about games that have user generated content
The Game Developer’s Conference : "The Make Art Button:  Batches, Actions and Scripts" 2006
    Two hour lecture about using the tools that you have to spend more time iterating in the creative realm and less time doing manual labor
Aces Developer’s Conference : "Best Practices in Creating Content" 2007 & 2008
    Lectures on creating efficient and performant art for the Flight Simulator engine and platform
Art Institute of Seattle Internship coordinator for Flight Simulator X 2004 - 2007
  • Helped coordinate interneship program for students
  • Regular guest lecturer on creating game assets
Digipen : MaxScript Lecture 2004
    Lectured on the basics of MaxScript, how to use it, where to apply it and what can be done with it
Education:
The Evergreen State College : Bachelor of Arts 1993 - 1995
  • Senior Thesis: Hammerhands: A Brown Comedy. (Writer / Director / Set Designer) - Full length play performed in the studio theater.
  • Studied multitrack composition.
  • Performed on the Evergreen compilation CD.
Carnegie Mellon University : Theater Studies for Directing 1991 - 1993
Other Interests:
  • I enjoy building and playing my own drums, percussion and electronic instruments.
  • I once directed and acted in an Off-Broadway play.