Associate Technical Artist - Riot Games

I worked at Riot Games from March 2010 to Febuary 2013, my primary focus during my time there was improving the graphical quality of the environments both directly and through creating tools and supporting the environment artists. Script examples from my time at Riot can be found here.

Project Shiny
The first initiative that i worked on was called Project Shiny, it had the goal of adding more advanced rendering technology to the game with specular, normal and reflection mapping.
Click for large version
I created and updated asset textures/models while editing shaders, and coordinated with an engeneer to create a vertical slice in of what advanced lighting could look like in League of Legends. After the prototype was completed, it was decided that advanced lighting was not apropriate for League of Legends and the project was shelved.

Harrowing
I was given the freedom to help enhance League of Legends in any fashion I saw fit. With Halloween on the horizon I coordinated with a concept artist, designer, animator, and comunity team member to create a League of Legends holiday, the Harrowing. I worked on reskinning the map to a Harrowing new theme, adding coffins, pumpkins, a night theme along with easter eggs. The map was well recived by the community and voted back in as an alternate map in the spring.Harrowing, click for larger version

Magma Chamber
While working with the designer on the Harrowing map the idea for a new map was at the forefront. The initial idea of a magma chamber had us all hot and bothered and we started working on creating a new map. I worked with the designer iterating on the gameplay space layout, coordinating with him to help reduce iteration time. During this time our first artist dedicated to the environment creation joined our team and we begand working on making the art pipline more friendly. My focus switched from authoring content to creating scripts to help resolve workflow issues.
Concept by Weley Keil, magma chamber concept, click for larger versionDuring playtests of Magma Chamber it was discovered that the direction we had picked for the map was not more fun than the core gamplay of League of Legends, so we refocused the team on creating Dominion.

Dominon
I transitioned to dominon ahead of our environment art team to help reduce designer iteration time four fold. As the design phase was completing the environment art team transitioned from Magma Chamber to Dominon. While working on Dominon I created sciprts and complex models for animation to help bring the map to life. The element I enjoyed working on most was the windmill at the top of the map,ensuring that the gears did not clip and drove each other's motion was an exciting challenge. I also helped create the finale sequence, working with an effects artist and rigger to shatter the giant crystals that were placed at each base.
Dominion Windmill, click for larger version

Summoners Rift Update
With the release of Dominion it became apparent that Summoner's Rift was not visually up to par so the initiative to create a higher quality Summoner's Rift was started on. I created scripts to improve the environment artist's workflow, coordinating with engeneering to make it possible to author content for some of the more complex peices of tech created for the map.Summoners rift 1.1, click for larger version

Twisted Treeline Update
Now that Summoners Rift had been updated the art team took on the challenge of reworking the three versus three map. during thsi time I worked with the team lead to create scripts and tools that could help enhance the workflow. With the main focus on painting textures for the map one of the tools I created allowed hotkey or single button export to game. This reduced artist iteration from 30+s per texture to under 2s, with that in our toolbox it was possible to iterate on the map much more rapidly easing the creation of higher quality content.Twisted Treeline, click for larger version