Gary Snyder

Work History

• 

  CG supervisor

  Electronic Arts Canada

  November 2015 - Present
• 

  Technical Art Director

  Capcom Vancouver

  March 2014 - September 2015

  Burnaby, British Columbia

  I lead an onsite team of Senior Technical Artists representing multiple Art and Product Disciplines. As the TAD, my focus is driving improvements in Process and Pipeline through improved communication. The ultimate challenge for any Technical Art Team is in maximizing our ability to affect change at the Product and Studio levels by exploiting our unique position at the hub of games development. My role as a TAD is to enable our team to achieve their full potential.
• 

  Technical Art Director

  Electronic Arts

  March 2012 - October 2013

  Playa Vista, California USA

  Led 5 Technical Artists distributed between LA and Shanghai to architect, troubleshoot, and automate our art production pipeline using the Frostbite 3 engine in the creation of Command & Conquer, the first RTS game on that platform. Special focus on Lighting, Materials, and Rendering as well as performance profiling and memory optimization.

• Technical Art Director

  Ubisoft Vancouver

  March 2011 - January 2012

  Vancouver, British Columbia Canada

  Collaborated with the Art Director and the Tools and Rendering Teams to identify and drive feature development for Motion Sports Adrenaline and Sports Connection. Special focus on developing content creation workflows and standards of our physically-based rendering pipeline for Sports Connection.
• 

  Technical Art Director

  Propaganda Games

  July 2007 - January 2011

  Led 2 Technical Artists to troubleshoot and further-develop our existing pipelines on Turok. Led VFX and Lighting teams to address the special needs of Tron: Evolution. Special focus on the development of a batched "reflection card" system that was eventually included with the UDK, as well as championing the use of the Beast Lighting Technology.
  
  Projects:
  Studio Account Manager - Autodesk
  Turok PC (2008)
  Turok 2
  Tron: Evolution - The Video Game (2010)
• 

  Technical Director: Art

  Ubisoft Montréal

  July 2004 - June 2007

  
  On Rainbow Six: Lockdown and Rainbow Six: Vegas, teamed with artists to identify, develop, and document ideal workflows in conjunction with the Software Engineers. On Shaun White Snowboarding, I designed a procedural generation workflow via World Machine that enabled artists and level designers to rapidly prototype playable mountains for our open-world snowboarding game.
  
  Projects:
  Coordinator - ZBrush 3 Beta
  Shaun White Snowboarding (XBox 360 / PS3) - Technical Director : Graphics / Level Design
  Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six : Vegas (XBox 360) - Technical Director : Graphics
  Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six : Lockdown (XBox) - Art / Technical Direction
  

  

• 3D Production Specialist

  Raichert Media

  March 2005 - November 2005

  
  3D Shot Production for web episodes promoting Wizkids' 'Rocketmen' tabletop game.
  
  Duties:
  -Modelling (NURBS)
  -Texturing (Illustrator and Photoshop)
  -Animation (Maya and After Effects)
  -Cel Shaders (Mental Ray)
  -Post Production and VFX (After Effects / Maya)
  -Render Network Setup and Maintenence (OS X / X11)
  

• Art Director / Technical Art Director

  Pseudo Interactive, Inc.

  January 1998 - May 2004

  
  Projects:
  Cel Damage
  Cel Damage Overdrive (PAL PS2)
  Vectorman (PS2 - Cancelled)
  XNA "Crash" Demo (GDC / E3)
  Full Auto
  
  Responsibilities included:
  -Art Team Management / Scheduling
  -Establishing and Maintaining the visual style
  -Graphics Technical Direction
  -Employee Reviews
  -Member of the company's Steering Comittee
  -Many other tasks
  
  As a critical resource in a small company, I participated in almost every step of the production process for several years.
  

• Lead Artist

  Ion Storm

  March 1997 - November 1997

  
  Projects:
  Doppelganger (PC - Cancelled)
  
  As a Lead Artist, I was largely responsible for colaborating with the Engine Programmers in prototyping the Character and Terrain systems for an unreleased project. Characters utilized a voxel-based rendering method, while the Terrain system was a largely-procedural, pre-rendered sprite array.
  

• Advanced Graphics Specialist

  Origin Systems, Inc.

  March 1995 - March 1997

  
  As an Advanced Graphics Specialist, I provided content for both cinematic and runtime use by way of Alias Power Animator, 3DS Max, Lightwave, and various compositing applications and game engines. Notable duties:
  Ultima IX
  -Character / Object Modeler and Character Animation
  -Animation System development / documentation
  -Cutscene VFX / Integration
  Ultima Online
  -Cutscene Artist