Josh Andersen

Work History

• 

  Unemployed

  Freelance

  September 2022 - Present

  Orem, UT USA

  Job hunting. Skills: Sculpting · Set Dressing · Concept · Texturing · 3D Modeling
• 

  Vehicle Artist

  Turn 10 Studios

  December 2019 - June 2020

  Redmond, WA
• 

  Monolith Productions

  October 2015 - April 2016

  Creating and managing in-game assets, such as props, buildings, terrain, weapons, content placement and optimization. General collaboration with lighting, fx, and design.
• 

  Senior Environment Artist

  SCEA PlayStation

  December 2014 - June 2015

  Greater San Diego Area

  While at Sony's VASG studio, I mainly worked on Sony Bend's Days Gone title, reviewing outsource work from vendors in China and India to ensure they met the client's visual and performance needs, with some content creation as needed.
  
  I hope it doesn't sound like I'm flighty. This contract ended early, because we'd be sitting around for a month waiting for some of the outsource studios to send in work. The way they explained it to me was, it was budget. I wanted to work on things, but we'd sit there for weeks on end waiting for things to come in, and it just wasn't practical. *sigh*
• 

  Warner Bros. Entertainment Group of Companies

  September 2013 - June 2014

  I've just wrapped up working with members of a very experienced team on architecture, terrain, props, and other general environment content on Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, for XBox1, PS4, and PC.
• 

  Senior Environment Artist

  Trion Worlds, Inc.

  September 2012 - July 2013

  Greater San Diego Area

  While at Trion Worlds, I was focused on creating organic artwork for Defiance, involving lots of SpeedTree foliage, both local and alien, hand-painting custom texture sets, modeling and texturing architecture and props, and exploring new tech for optimizing performance and workflow.
  
  The way this ended, was, Defiance didn't sell nearly as well as hoped. I worked on it until it shipped, but afterwards, they closed the entire studio, so, everyone went to different places. I went back to Monolith, and referred one of the lighting artists, who worked with me on wrapping up Shadow of Mordor. We had a great HR rep, Stacey Frias, who helped immensely with getting people re-situated.

• Senior Environment Artist

  Surreal Software/Midway Entertainment/Warner Brothers Games

  March 1999 - November 2011

  Greater Seattle Area

  12 years 9 months
  
  Responsibilities:
  
  Creation of environment art content, including modeling and texturing architecture, foliage, terrain, some character work, and props. With collision and physics, optimization for the PC, XBox 360 and PS3 consoles, using Maya, 3DSMax, SpeedTree, Photoshop, ZBrush, nDo, and CrazyBump, and various game engines, for the following shipped titles:
  
  - Drakan: Order of the Flame
  - Drakan: The Ancient's Gates
  - The Suffering: Ties That Bind
  - Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
  - Stranglehold
  - Area 51: Blacksite
  - Wheelman
  - Fear 3
  - Lord of the Rings: War in the North
  
  This ended when there was a large title cancelled. WB had combined Snowblind, Monolith, and Midway/Surreal into one massive studio. There were a bunch of layoffs, not performance-based, I caught a glimpse, it was, "This many people in this department, this many people in this department, this many people in this other department..." And so on, it was indiscriminate, just numbers, to be fair. Anyway! This was when I moved to San Diego to work at Trion Worlds.

  

  

• CG Artist

  Glyphx

  April 1997 - February 1999

  Pleasant Grove, UT

  Created CG imagery and animation for companies' ad campaigns, video games, and websites. Worked directly with Andrey Zmievski in creating plug-ins for 3DS Max, including procedural textures, cloth simulation, and blendshape tools. Wrote the Surface Modeling chapter for Inside 3D Studio Max 2.
  
  It... I'm afraid to say, was a stepping-stool. I saw the writing on the wall. I didn't hate it, it actually launched my career in the games industry. It was a two-man studio, which just isn't viable. Admirable venture, but, well... at least we tried!
• 

  3D Modeler

  Viewpoint Datalabs

  June 1995 - April 1997

  Orem, UT

  Created 3D models for both the Viewpoint catalog, and for clients, ranging from minor props, to characters, to architectural visualization. My job also involved some sculpting, 3D digitizing, and motion capture cleanup. One of my primary tasks was spearheading research into PC based 3D software, including beta-testing 3DSMax, and how we could use it for future projects.
  
  This was just prior to moving over with Todd Sheridan, one of their character art leads to GlyphX. Reason I left, was I was just a 3D Xerox machine at Viewpoint. I mean, I became good at it, but it was just making things others had designed, instead of making art. There was no creative license. Which is fine, you make things the client wants to exact spec, but I wound up feeling like a drone.

• Staff Artist

  ClassAct Multimedia

  April 1994 - June 1995

  Orem, UT

  1 year 2 months
  
  Responsibilities: 3D logo treatments, authoring and creating interactive training
  materials for graphics software.
  
  While I really liked the team there... I don't like to say things bad about anyone, so, no names, but the owner was manic/depressive. Bipolar. He'd be ready to give you a raise or promotion one day, ready to fire you the next, and back and forth and back and forth like that. It was too chaotic.