Nathan Phail-Liff

Nathan Phail-Liff

Art Director at Ready At Dawn Studios

Supervisor Art Director / 24 yrs

Orange County, California Area

Hire Me

Lone Echo (2017)

Art Director

The Order: 1886 (2015)

Art Director

God of War: Ghost of Sparta (2010)

Lead 3D Artist

God of War: Chains of Olympus (2008)

Environment Artist

Daxter (2006)

Nathan Phail-Liff is currently Art Director at Ready At Dawn Studios, most recently shipping The Order: 1886 for the PlayStation 4.

Prior to The Order: 1886, Nathan worked on God of War: Ghost of Sparta as Art Director, God of War: Chains of Olympus as Lead 3D Artist and Technical Artist, and on Daxter as Environment, Lighting, and Texture Artist. Drawing from both his technical and artistic background, Nathan has played an integral role in pushing the expectations of visual and technological polish on the PSP and PlayStation 4 platforms.
Work History

  • Art Director

    Ready At Dawn Studios

    January 2009 - Present

    The Order 1886:
    + Responsible for visual direction of project and supervised art production
    + Worked with art and engineering teams to propose and develop various pipeline solutions
    (including: material and compositing system, textile scanning, cinematic shot lighting, character art pipelines and costume detailing, prop baking and lod generation, color grading, and fullscreen fx)
    + Production lighting artist for both environment and cinematic shot lighting
    + Further extension of maya data driven node editor developed on previous engine

    God of War: Ghost of Sparta:
    + Responsible for visual direction of project and supervised art production
    + Created bulk of environmental FX and skydome backdrops
    + Additional environmental modeling, texturing, game lighting, and cinematic finishing
    + Additional tools development to expand upon Chains of Olympus technology

  • Lead 3D Artist

    Ready At Dawn Studios

    June 2006 - December 2008

    God of War: Chains of Olympus:
    + Worked with artists to establish and maintain art style, including modeling, texturing, lighting, UI, and FX.
    + Served as bridge between with artists and programmers to optimize production pipelines, prioritize and implement new tech requests, and develop solutions for performance optimization.
    + Closely supported lighting artist with art direction and rough production color keys.
    + Created most all environmental FX (Texture/Geo/Particles) and skydome compositions.
    + Additional environmental modeling, character FX, game lighting, and cinematic finishing.
    + Designed and programmed user side of the Ready at Dawn Engine Maya tools architecture, driven entirely by markup language.

  • Environment Artist

    Ready At Dawn Studios

    August 2004 - June 2006

    Modeled, textured, and lit environments for Daxter (PSP). Additionally some concept art, graphic design, and tools scripting.

  • Designer / 3D Illustrator

    AlienintheBox

    January 1999 - July 2004

  • Graphic Artist

    Engineered Multimedia

    December 1998 - December 1999
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Education

  • BFA in 3D Modeling

    Academy of Art University

    2000 - 2004

  • Aerospace Engineering

    Georgia Institute of Technology

    1997 - 1998