Ben Miller

Ben Miller

3D artist and digital sculptor.

Mid-level 3D Artist / 10 yrs

Mountain View, CA

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Environment Artist and Art Director

Home a Drone (2019)

3D Character Artist and Generalist

The Price of Freedom (2016)
I am a digital artist based in Mountain View, CA, with a background in 3D graphics who, much like my art style, draws inspiration from games, fine arts, and nature. Along the way I’ve worked with a glass caster to make portraits of classical composers, with a VR game studio to create beautifully optimized assets and environments, produced an intricately detailed wedding sculpture, and even spent a few months programming a plugin’s interface for Maya.

Throughout my growth as an artist, I’ve held closely to my eye’s desire for accurate reproduction of detail. Whether I’m modeling, sculpting, texturing, sketching, programming, 3D printing, or designing gameplay, that same desire will be at the foundation of my work.
Work History

  • Senior Artist

    Synapcis

    August 2020 - Present
    California, United States

    Producing assets, designs, layouts, levels, scripting systems, and making prototypes to support our larger project goals.

  • Background Painter

    Freelance

    June 2020 - July 2020

    Digitally painted a set of backgrounds featuring landscapes and several abstract settings which were used for a 2D animation. Divisions between foreground, mid-ground, and background elements were preserved to create parallax effects during camera movements. Styles and perspective were matched between each scene.

  • Art Director and Environment Artist

    Construct Studio

    May 2019 - October 2019
    Burlingame, CA

    Along with producing environment art, I took on the role of organizing and optimizing art content while aligning efforts between the art and engineering departments.

    • Designed, prototyped, and produced the environment for the VR game, Home a Drone, aligning my efforts to meet a series of tight, often unpredictable deadlines.
    • Optimized performance across art assets to meet strict VR standards. Researched and prioritized options for each deadline by making use of light probes, light baking, LODs, billboards, occlusion culling, and by reducing mesh and material counts.
    • Organized scene and file structures within Unity to stabilize content growth and provide clear, consistent communication between departments.
    • Coordinated with our engineers to ensure art assets were implemented as intended.
    • Identified and completed crucial tasks that remained unclaimed late in production while working to balance art styles and provide marketing renders.

  • 3D Generalist and UI Designer

    Construct Studio

    March 2017 - April 2019
    Granbury, TX

    • Designed and produced a large number of low-poly, VR-friendly assets for an update to The Price of Freedom. Assets were created with PBR texturing in a photo-realistic style.
    • Programmed modular UI for the Maya plugin of our Vera software using Python with Qt bindings. Worked together with our engineers to ensure stable, efficient communication between their data and my interfaces.
    • Produced concept art and rapidly prototyped environments in Unity for a number of VR/AR client projects and studio marketing materials.

  • 3D Character Artist

    Construct Studio

    September 2016 - December 2016
    Granbury, TX

    • Worked remotely to design and produce a pair of realistic hand and arm models with clean topology representing the main character in the VR game, "The Price of Freedom".

  • Relief Portrait Sculptor

    Freelance for Robin Lehman

    November 2012 - December 2016
    Rochester, NY

    • Produced a series of relief sculptures, many featuring portraits of musical composers, which were 3D printed, cast in glass, and donated to musical organizations and museums.
    • Researched, tested, and documented new workflows for digitally sculpting in relief while developing a deeper understanding of the medium’s unique challenges.
    • Designed meshes for 3D printing, coordinating with my client to provide stable results.

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Education

  • 3D Digital Graphics

    Rochester Institute of Technology

    August 2009 - May 2013