Hi, I’m Matt!
If you’re making a game with a small team and ambitious goals, I’m the developer for you! I specialize in 3D art, with extensive experience shipping games in Unity, and a growing body of work in Godot. I bring a tech artist perspective, with a focus on finding the right tools as force multipliers for the project that you want to develop. With enough planning we can keep costs low, and quality high.
I started teaching myself 3D art in elementary school, taught myself game development in high school, and got my degree in Game Design at Sheridan college working with dozens of talented developers and designers.
Formerly a Developer at Alientrap Games Inc., 3D Cartographer on the MGM licensed Stargate SG-1 Roleplaying Game, Cinematographer/Generalist for Stitch Media, and VR/Stereoscopic Specialist at the Communications Research Center for the Canadian Government.
I’m always open to neat 3D, Game, VR, and Real-time contracts and opportunities!
Feel free to reach out if you’d like to hire me, have questions about what I do or need some advice on your own journey!
More great developers and artist I recommend:
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Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What’s your asset modelling process?
A: When approaching a new asset, I almost always start with a quick sketch to internalize the thing I’m creating. From there I’ll focus on a low poly mesh, not the final mesh, but something almost there. Once the low-poly mesh is ready it gets duplicated and details are added to make the high poly model for baking. With the high poly done, I duplicate the low poly again to make the game ready model. This model will have it’s geometry adjusted to match the high-poly, and it will get an optimization pass to lock in the vertex data before baking. I love using baked ID maps for consistent texturing. Once the bakes are done, texturing can begin, and we can get this Modell in-engine!
This specific process works like a tree, a really strong trunk of base geometry used by all the meshes, and then distinct branches the lead to the end goals of a gorgeous high poly mesh, and a perfectly optimized game ready mesh. You can add branches with the same process for other end products like a damaged version.
This flow of detail development allows lots of room for feedback and active communication along the way. That feedback can be incorporated non-destructively throughout the process.
Q: What subject matter do you prefer to focus on?
A: I love space ships, but any thing hard surface and big is like catnip. Massive industrial environments are as good as the cockpit of a stealth bomber. The other thing I love is a unique challenge, a lot of my character art projects come from the challenge angle, and then incorporate hard surface elements.
Q: How does work life balance effect the work you make?
A: Hanging out with friends and food helps keep burn out away.
Naturally a better work life balance improves all work products – but especially making digital art – the life part really informs a lot of design decisions in the work part. The more life experience you have the better to models, textures, and stories you make.
Q: How up to date are you with the latest software developments?
A: Very, it’s important to me to stay on top of the latest technology and techniques. It’s also a priority of mine to understand what is coming up in the 3D art worlds, and to have a in depth understanding of what tools are effective for different circumstances.
As an example: I love VDB visual effects for making rendered art and animations, but they’re almost never appropriate for a real-time use like games. I know this from following their development for years, making them myself and investing in state of the art tools like EmberGen to work with them better. I’ve used them in projects like the SGRPG battlemaps, but I would never recommend them to a client for a VR game.
Knowing all the tools is important, but knowing when to use those tools, and how to apply those tools… that can save or destroy a project it ways that don’t show up until QA.
Q: What are some of your working principles?
A: Lots of general advice like “Work from the general to specific”, “Communicate often” and “Weight feedback carefully”.
Q: Why does your portfolio have so much variety?
A: I’ve worked for years with indie studios, and they often hire a technical artist as a stand-in for an entire art department. Many things I’ve created for these studios don’t even appear in my portfolio since they fall outside of my main focus. At the end of the day, if the problem is game-art related, I can normally solve it for you and your team.
Q: How do the sketches you use convert to a better end result?
A: As I build out a model my sketchs will evolve and guide the placement for vertices, the use of UVs, and can even incorporate technical features like bones, vertex colours and custom normal directions. They act as a non-technical space to explore the needs of a model and find the best path to a perfect finished result.
These aren’t concept art, they’re more like function diagrams, often exploring a specific relationship in the model that is particularly complex.
Q: How do you fit into a larger team?
A: That depends on the team, but normally I fit in as a 3D modeler to start with, and morph around the edges to fill any required gaps in our team.
This can mean I end up guiding less experienced artist or programmers when they ask for advice or help with tools, it can also end up with me developing shaders that bring our art to life. Often there is an element of technical advising going on, helping to keep performance on target, or getting more punch to our work for the same budget.