A technical artist acts as a bridge between Programmers and Artists. They make sure that art assets are device ready and code friendly. Sometimes it requires R&D, programming, or teaching, but it's always changing and you never know what's around the bend.
I'm currently residing in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and my expertise lies in 3D Game Development with a focus on optimizing for the iPhone and other mobile devices. I have copious experience working with multiple open and proprietary engines, but the engine I enjoy working with the most is Unity. It's easy to create small scripts that attach together and quickly create impressive results.
Working with multiple game engines means working with numerous programming languages. The game engines themselves are typically C++, C or C#, but in the process of creating export and import tools for artists I've had to learn dozens of other languages and can pick new ones up quickly. It's all about figuring out which language suits the task at hand. Two of the languages that I find the most useful are MaxScript and Photoshop JavaScript. Using just these two it's easy to create tools, importers, and exporters. Whatever is needed to help artists complete their work quickly and easily without the need for external software. The less time the content developers spend switching between software the more time they can spend tweaking their art.
Another part of the job that I enjoy is getting to work with shading languages. Using a simple mathematical equation can totally change the look of a game. From a stylistic half lambert with gradient ramp to a photo-realistic blinn shader, they can set your game apart from the competition. Creating complex shaders is great, but the shader that I'm most proud of is one that does a colour replacement and uses an absolute minimum of instructions so that an iPhone 3GS keeps running at 30fps while displaying four complete hands of cards plus special effects without batting an eye.
When I'm trying out a new technique or I've discovered something interesting, my blog is likely where you'll see it first. I jump around from programming to art, so make sure to visit there frequently if you're interested in following what I'm currently working on. If you want to see my completed work, this is the place to be. Please browse around and feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you may have.
| Neil Marshall | |
|---|---|
| Email: | neil@eightlines.com |
| Skype: | neil.marshall47 |
| Linked-in: | Profile |