Xatrix

Cyberia 1 / 1994

 I first started at Xatrix as the Conceptual Designer for a location based entertainment project, “SpeedScape” and then moved over to work on Cyberia, one of the first PC CD-ROM games. I worked with the Creative Director to design a gamut of cool stuff: future worlds, characters, vehicles and props – I’d illustrate my designs and pass them off to our modeling/texture team. Since this was a pre-rendered game, we were able to throw many polygons at the scene, but early on in production we realized that it took too long building the environments this way. One day my boss took away my markers and replaced them with a Mac/Wacom tablet…decided we were going to build simpler geo for our exterior/interior buildings and I was going to paint all the texture maps. It was a great decision and I got up to speed quickly. I would paint all the textures “Emissively”, illustrating all the lighting and material rendering into the map. Illustrated lightsources on one texture would throw a light cone on the adjacent one. The geo was emissive white, so whatever I painted showed up 100% –  3d lights had to be placed to match my painted lighting so the character would match the scene. I taught these techniques to new hires and they became the foundation for the sequel, Cyberia 2.

◦      Responsible for:  Art Direction, Concept Design, texture illustration.
◦      Proprietary Game Engine (pc cd-rom)

Cyberia 2 / 1995

The follow-up to Cyberia allowed us to expand on the core concepts with more production value and a larger team. I shared the development with a more diverse team of artists, and balanced the role of Art Director and Concept designer. We visited more diverse environments and used more photo reference to illustrate a grittier and used future world. As with every sequel, our in-house tools advanced, allowing us to make each sequence more over the top, complex and detailed – adding more definition to the characters, vehicles and interactions. The color palette was more neutral and realistic, distinguishing it from the original title. Other opportunities followed at Xatrix, but I wanted to explore “real-time” game development at a larger game company like Activision.

◦      Responsible for:  Art Direction, Concept Design, texture illustration.
◦      Proprietary Game Engine (pc cd-rom)