Engineering

Epic Games

At Epic, I am currently part of the team working on a brand-new programming language, working on the compiler and toolchain, along with a brand-new bespoke IDE for it, among many other unannounced projects.

Others

Most of the projects I work on are under NDA for obvious reasons, so I won't be able to share them here. However, if you want a general idea of what I do and how I do it, please take a look at my Github or Bitbucket.

Some personal code projects I'm happy with include:

• libss, my own super-simple libraries that I use across several of my own applications: https://bitbucket.org/sonictk/libss

• Hot-reloading compiled code in Maya: https://github.com/sonictk/maya_hot_reload_example_public

• Sample deformers plugin for Autodesk Mudbox: https://bitbucket.org/sonictk/mudbox-deformers

I also write tutorials on various subjects, such as this one on x64 assembly in Windows, and this one on writing Python C++ extensions for Maya.

If you'd like to see more, simply peruse my repositories, or take a look at my blog.

Past work experience

Apple

At Apple, as a Production Tools Engineer, I made several contributions to the USD for Maya project, as part of my work within Apple, including various bugfixes, adding new features such as blendshape export support, support for import chaser plugins and importing USDZ textures, among others, and being the primary reviewer for the code that the Technology Development Group submitted to Autodesk on a regular basis. I also made contributions to Apple's internal USD libraries and Reality Composer, along with supporting our internal art teams with the usual bevy of internal Maya/DCC tools.

Everything else I worked on is unannounced/unreleased.

Blizzard Cinematics

I worked on the Front-end Technical Director team as one of the senior TDs developing the tools and technologies behind all the cinematics in Blizzard titles, which ranges from working on user-facing products such as DCC tools in Maya, Photoshop, other proprietary software and so on, to working on the lower levels of abstraction such as Maya custom nodes, both custom and OSS file format parsers such as Alembic, working with custom engines or debugging problems that range from all the way in JavaScript or Python, to C/C++, or right down to the assembly if needed.

Below is a small selection of just some of the cinematics that our department produces with the backbone of our team's products and the skill of our artists combined.

Diablo IV Announcement Cinematic

Overwatch 2 Announcement Cinematic

Overwatch - Shooting Star

Overwatch - The Last Bastion

Overwatch - Dragons

World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth Cinematic Trailer

World of Warcraft: Old Soldier

Hearthstone: Hearth and Home

Frostburn Studios

While working at Frostburn Studios, I designed and implemented the studio's fledging art asset pipeline, integrating ftrack into 3ds max, which was the studio's primary DCC at the time. I also worked on setup of all tools and the Amazon S3 backend required to hold the art assets at the time.

Never Alone

Technical Animator. Did in-game/cinematic character animation, along with writing asset pipeline tools, shaders/lighting development and helping with debugging gameplay programming when needed.

Dark Grounds

Worked as a FX artist, responsible for environmental/abilites visual effects.

Personal

Non-professional projects that I've worked on over the years.

Bait & Switch

Student film from DigiPen Institute of Technology. Lead artist on the team, and worked on everything from intial concepts to final renders.

Rigging

FX