The Unity Editor is one of the most flexible and customizable game engine on the market.
I always had a somewhat technical profile, always enjoyed understanding technology to use it better, and figuring out ways to make my work, and the work of my team mates better, more flexible, less constraining and repetitive. By unblocking artists, automating repetitive processes, improving work pipeline.

I really got the opportunity to grow as a Technical Artist at Unity. First by making some small tools in DCC (Mel, Maxscript, Python) to unblock myself and to allow me to author the content in the specific ways that the project was expecting it. And then I really dived into creating C# code for Unity, making smaller scripts at first, up to more fully fledged tools.

If you are interested to know more about the specifics and the type of scripts/tools I worked on, you can read more by clicking the button below.

Here is a non exhaustive list of TechArt challenges I worked on during my time at Unity.
I also need to say that the degree of finish and polish of those tools vary. Some are quite advanced and very flexible, some are more quick hacks to unblock us.

Book of the Dead:

• Maya script to author vegetation and trees vertex color, that are used in Unity to define the type of vegetation and for trees to define branches pivot, hierarchy (is the vertex part of the trunk, a main branch, or a child branch with leafs alpha material)(Mel script + python)
• Maya script to author vegetation and trees vertex normals, projected from a proxy geometry.(Mel script + python)
• Houdini tool to automate the processing of photogrammetry assets coming from a third party:
• Fix gamma of textures with incorrect sRGB settings
• Texture tweaks and packing for use in Unity HDRP
• LOD generation
• Object Space Normal Map generation
• UV tweaks: Lower UV space of surfaces that would have the terrain material applied in the shader (For blending assets to the terrain)

The Heretic:

• PolyBrush vertex color LOD bake tool and asset storing
  
  Polybrush is a Unity tool that allows the user to paint vertex color onto meshes. But there is no way in Unity to bake/project those vertex colors onto LODs, rendering the tool basically useless in AA/AAA productions. I built a tool that will project vertex colors from a selected LOD onto the other LODs(Matching object names), using batched raycasts.
  The tool also allowed to store the painted vertex colors into an asset, allowing then the user to update the source geometry and re-project its previous vertex colors onto the updated geometry

Unreleased project:

• Asset Pipeline improvement from 3DsMax/SubstancePainter/etc to Unity, make iteration faster for artists:
  • 1 button multi asset export from 3DsMax straight to the right directory, with the right export setting, right asset name, auto file VersionControl checkout if necessary (MaxScript/Python)
  • Substance Painter python script for auto exporting asset in the right asset folder(Python)
  • Context menu in Unity for opening source asset files within editor. (Works by mirroring source/asset paths and strict naming convention)
• Unity post process script to automatically set all the right import settings of models (+Merge geometry, extended LODs setup, collisions setup, lighting settings, static flags, GameObject layer etc) and textures
• Tool to preview all texture channels from the scene view in a single view (albedo, normal, roughness, etc) for easy review of outsourcing assets
• Spline authoring tool prototype, with am auto prefab instancing component to build walls/fences/etc along a spline, with the ption to automatically align to terrain surface.
• ShaderGraph Property Renamer:
  Rename shader graph properties, automatically patches all materials using that shadergraph, also allow to see VersionControl status of all affected files and allow to lock them all in one click.
• Prefab Library Scene Generator:
  Automatically instance all prefab from a specified folder in a scene, correctly spaced from each other (Based on MeshRenderer Bounds) with 3D text labels to communicate folder hierarchy of asset.
• Asset Placement Tool:
  Place selected assets on the surface under the mouse. Allows placing assets on renderers or colliders. Allows the user to chose what is the up vector of the asset. Allows to project large amount of object on a surface and align those automatically. Interface is built using overlays
• Simple and quick prefab replacement tool.
• Prefab Reference Component:
  Asset Pipeline exploration allowing to apply overrides from several prefab assets on a selected prefab, those are applied during asset import.
  It allow for example to have a character prefab and decide to apply on top of it the prefab overrides from a "Character Animation Setup" prefab, and a "Character Gameplay Setup" prefab. Creating some sort of "Composite Prefab"
• Experimental Houdini tool to automatically generate edge decals geometry with correct UVs, setup as tool to use with Houdini Engine within 3DsMax.

I did therefor not participate in the end of production of the Miami Level, kudos to the whole team at IO-Interative that finished it and polished it into a great Hitman level.

Working as a Principal Environment Artist on Hitman 2, I had some more responsabilities, including:

• Help shaping the level from the ground up, together with our team, including the track owner/level designer Håkan Almer, our lead level designer Torbjørn Vinther and our game designers.
• Figure out the visual design of the different locations/biome with our assigned concept artist Rafael Kowalski.
• Delegate tasks to the other artists working on this track and provide feedback. 
• Support junior 3D Artists in their daily tasks, teach them when they are facing tasks that are new to them (Outsourcing document writing, working on level layout, etc) 
• Making sure that our level designers work in a sane direction / Being the link between the artists and the level designer. 
• Staying in contact with our technical and fx artists to make sure that the level is optimized and that all the vfx and special requests from our level designers are feasible. 
• Making estimates of production time together with the other artists, and keeping the level in scope. 
• Be the go-to person in contact with external vendors assigned to our production track, delegating tasks and writing briefs to them, answering their questions, teaching them our tools and pipelines.

• Figuring out level layout together with level designers and track owners, setting up everything to have a level that is nice to play, that looks good and that runs wells. Level design, optimization, framing and tech should be involved already at this stage.
• Creating whitebox geometry for said levels, including both terrains/architecture and props. 
• Level setup (Scene creation, base setup of our occlusion system, base setup of our light probes) 
• Writing down outsourcing briefs for level geometry, props and setpieces that will be produced by our outsourcing vendors. Those documents are sometimes simple and straight forward, but sometimes require meticulous planning and explaining to make sure that we get exactly what we want back from our vendors. 
• Setting up a first pass of lighting, that communicates desired mood of the different locations in the game. They will be later worked on by our dedicated lighting artists. 
• Setup of complex prop templates and setpieces using Glacier 2 visual scripting. 
• Level optimization. Including drawcall optimization, checking material overdraw, LOD tweaks, reviewing props coming back from our external outsourcing vendors (LODs, Texture size, Material used), etc.
• Initial setup of some level gameplay-related scripts affecting environment or setpieces. 
• Creation of some models, materials and textures from scratch. 
• Creation of some VFX elements (Animated/interactive screens, cloth setup, etc.) 

Everything is rendered inside the Unreal Development Kit (Including the small intro)

Reference concept art by Eric Gagnon aka  Gryphart ( http://gryphart.com/ ) for Deus Ex Human Revolution, a title from Eidos Montreal

The awesome soundtrack is: Icarus from Deus Ex: Human Revolution Original Soundtrack
Author: Michael McCann
You can buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Deus-Ex-Revolution-Original-Soundtrack/dp/B005TWSQ1E

• Create environment using the asset and texture library.
• Light the scene, add fx (particles, fog, godray, flares, etc)
• Work closely with the level designer and the art director.
  
• Create scripts that are environment related (In a in-house language, close to c++)
  

About one year ago I joined the company Zootfly as an Environment Artist, to work on a  Beat ‘em all game for XBox360, PS3 and PC: Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death.

My first main task was to create the 1st art pass on the environment of several levels, using our library of prefabs and textures. The engine is developed in-house, and all the work is done in Autodesk Maya with a set of home-made plug-ins.
This task include: Mapping, lighting, modeling, texturing, creating fx, creating some background animations, test on the different platforms and optimize levels to keep the frame-rate over 30fps at all time.

- Lead Environment Artist -

After 7 months, when most levels were finished in the first pass, the art team was split in two to work on different projects, I was at this moment chosen by our managers to take the position of lead environment artist (of a really small team) to oversee the second art pass and polish of all the levels of the game.

With this role, I had to ensure that our team was respecting deadlines given by our producer and following the art direction. I also had to help the other level artists in case of issues, manage the props or features request list, and act as a bridge between our team and the art director on one side, and the programmers on the other side to fix mostly visual or performance issues that we were facing, or improve some tools that we were needing.

Before working for Zootfly, I moved from Belgium to the south of France to join the team of Lexis Numerique.

My Task: The game we were working on was unfortunately canceled, my task on this project was 3D artist. I mainly had to model apartments with 3dsmax using references drawn by our concept artist, paint the different texture maps, and export/import everything in the game engine (Phyre Engine).

New responsabilities: After about 6 months in Lexis Numerique, the financial situation of the company led to a reduction of staff, and I was one of the few artists that our managers chosed to keep. My responsibilities got wider at this moment, I had to work on different tasks including: Some work on fx, preparing scenes for upcoming motion capture, work with lead programmer to create a new, better pipeline, for environments, animations, and animated props import into the engine, using a resource database and some sort of level-manager.