Last updated Unknown

I tried looking through many “About” sections to figure out ideas for what to write here. I ultimately came to the conclusion that it was more important for me to stumble through this myself. Those imperfections are part of me too after all. Rather than some form of curriculum vitae, I also prefer to structure this page as a focus on my ideals. If you did come here looking for a generalized CV about me, that’s here

All of my work professionally could be loosely described as “figure it out”, I like to broadly tell people that I’m a “professional problem-solver”.

In reality that’s all any of us are, we have expertise and solve the problems that others cannot. I pride myself on being a Generalist, a “Swiss Army Knife”, as described by my previous managers and mentors.

So far I’ve been a:

• Bench Technician - Repairing, Building, and Modifying Hardware
• Software Engineer - Working with decompiled applications to rebuild source
• Lead Game Content Developer - Owner of all the technical aspects of a biz dev strike team
• Technical Designer (IC) - Building Tools & Solutions supporting teams for the studio
• Senior Technical Artist - Building Tools, Accelerating Pipelines, Managing Features, and Optimizing Art & Gameplay systems
• Mentor & Teacher - Aiding students along their journey to becoming or adopting the knowledge of Tech Art & Tech Design

I have a tendency to wander down extensive rabbit holes and get lost for a short while. Maybe it’s how someone expresses their ideas and opinions, a historical recounting of role-playing games, or a technical discussion about rendering. I often come away from these brimming with ideas, so when I find a new focus it is often very exciting.

Every field of expertise has a set of fundamentals that they rely on. The way we demonstrate our expertise to each other, is through demonstrations of these fundamentals. Art / Design / Programming all have their best/worst practices. As I have diversified my knowledge I’ve come to realize that many of these fundamentals can be “self-similar”, the same idea in a different field.

In the current ecosystem of game development, many developers are “trapped” in their Engine of choice. I am of the opinion that if you learn the fundamentals, you can take that knowledge to any game engine, any other tool for creation, and achieve similar results.

This medium, for me, is an accumulation of all other art forms. In some way any art form can find its way into the space of Games. I’ve been making “games” for as long as I can remember, but professionally it’s been 10 years as of writing this.

I’m constantly playing, making, analyzing, and exploring other analyses for games. Whether those are insights from professionals or an essay from a passionate player, I think the voices are important to hear. It’s also important to form your own opinions though, you cannot create strong art without a voice of your own.

Have fun, be goofy, try to not let the seriousness of life drag you down too much.