James Haywood

Work History

• 

  Tools Engineer

  Bungie

  November 2007 - Present

  Supporting content creators with custom tools and technical assistance.

  

  

  

• Technical Artist

  Bungie Studios/Microsoft Game Studios

  March 2007 - November 2007

  I developed and maintained the majority of our 3dsMax tools pipeline, helping artists get their assets into the game faster and with fewer issues.
  
  I also created many other artist-facing tools using C#/WPF, again with the goal of enabling our content creators to iterate faster and be more productive.
• 

  Technical Director

  Gas Powered Games

  January 2005 - March 2007

  • Dungeon Siege 2
  • Dungeon Siege 2: Broken World
  • Supreme Commander
  Special effects, lighting, and compositing for pre-rendered cinematics. Also heavily involved in creating and evaluating new tools, troubleshooting technical issues, and improving workflow for the art team.

• Contract Artist

  Oberon Media

  July 2004 - November 2004

  • Lemony Snicket's, A Series of Unfortunate Events
  • BeTrapped
  • Various games in developement
  Created both 3D and 2D assets to be used in their downloadable Flash games. Worked directly with the Creative and Art Directors to produce attractive and fun artwork in a short amount of time.
• 

  Technical Artist

  Treyarch

  April 2004 - July 2004

  • Dead Rush
  • Ultimate Spiderman
  Saved many fellow artists from yet another late-night pizza dinner by creating many time saving tools using MaxScript. These tools were a key factor in allowing the environment artists to create stunning levels while still meeting critical milestones. They included lighting tools, an auto UV mapper, collision maker, LOD creator, and numerous workflow enhancements. Also created one of the more striking in-game effects; a gigantic whirling vortex of clouds and lost souls.
• 

  3D Artist

  Frantic Films

  February 2004 - April 2004

  • Superman Returns
  Worked directly with the visual effects supervisor to create pre-visualizations of many of the shots in the film that would require a large amount of CG work. With a very tight deadline, a set a story boards drawn by other artists would be quickly recreated in 3D. From there the scene would be refined by smoothing the camera moves and making them more dynamic, animating the characters, and adding particle effects and lighting.

• Environment Artist

  Black Ops

  September 2002 - January 2004

  • T3: Rise of the Machines
  Worked with any artists having trouble with the game engine, and worked closely with programmers to develop and test new tools and functionality for the engine. Brought three complete levels to life, including modeling, texturing, lighting, collision, and particle effects. Fixed bugs and polished art in other levels. Also modeled and textured many of the first-person weapons.

• 3D Animator

  Prolific Publishing

  September 2001 - September 2002

  • Don't Call Me Max
  Helped establish the personality of all game characters through the creation of hundreds of in-game animations, as well as the intro and outro movies. Continually refined each animation individually to achieve the perfect balance between playability, functionality, and visual appeal. Also optimized art assets, worked with the programmers, and helped out with the modeling and texturing chores.