Erik Koehlert |
ekoehlert@gmail.com |
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Professional SummarySeasoned
professional with over 10 years of experience in the video game industry having
shipped 8 titles. A strong working knowledge of 3D asset creation,
asset management, and scripted tool development. Passionate about video game
development and creating tools that improve artist workflow. |
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ExperienceLead Technical Artist on Hellgate London |
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| Red Bana Studios | August 2008- February 2010 |
| Mentored a new team in producing art assets for Hellgate London. Developed tools to aid in creating, processing, checking, and integrating art assets. Ragdoll and particle effect creation. Rigged and skinned monsters and weapons. Documented artistic techniques and tool usage. Diagnosed and troubleshot pipeline issues and game bugs. Evaluated game engines for a new title in development. |
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| Technical Artist on Hellgate London | |
| Flagship Studios | April 2004 – July 2008 |
| Led research & development efforts toward new tools and methods. Created tools and workflows to facilitate art creation and asset tracking. Authored custom Maxscripts to enhance and accelerate ragdoll creation using Havok’s Physics Toolkit. Produced particle effects for guns and monsters. Provided specifications, evaluated, and processed contracted art assets and then trained a team to take over these tasks once production ramped up. Rigged and animated many of the weapons. Mediator for voicing issues/concerns/recommendations to artists and programmers. |
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| Assistant Lead Artist on All Star Baseball 2005 (PS2 and Xbox) | |
| Acclaim Studios Austin | March 2003 – March 2004 |
| Provided guidance, task assignment, and review for the environmental artists. Worked with programmers to improve lighting methods, add multi-pass texturing, and environment mapping. Researched ways to optimize environment geometry, collision, mapping, and textures for PS2 transition. Modeled, textured, lit, and created collision for Petco Park and Olympic Stadium. Edited, enhanced, and optimized many existing stadium files. |
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| Senior Artist on NBA Jam 2004 (PS2 and Xbox) & VEXX (PS2, GC, and Xbox) | |
| Acclaim Studios Austin | April 2002 - September 2003 |
| Collaborated with NBA Jam programming staff to design and test a new particle editor, creating initial effects for the game in the process. Created in-game particle effects on VEXX using a proprietary particle editor. Adapted particle effects to fit strict budgets for memory and CPU time on multiple platforms. Guided development of many enhancements to the particle editors used across the studio.
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| Lead Artist on THRASH: cancelled title for (PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox) | |
| Acclaim Studios Austin | July 2001 - March 2002 |
| Provided leadership of art staff and development team. Art team scheduling, drafted art specification documents, and oversaw the development of art processes. Collaborated with the design staff and concept artist in developing the look of the game. Researched terrain creation, texturing, and lighting techniques during pre-production. Helped model and texture characters, vehicles, environments, and props. |
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Digital Productions Artist on: |
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| Acclaim Studios Austin | April 1999 - March 2002 |
| Maxscript tools for crowd creation, vertex coloring, and parametric exit ramp and stair creation. Modeled, textured, and lit football/baseball stadiums. Reduced laser scan data for the initial creation of the player model. Created player name and number fonts and assisted in texture template design. Provided front-end concept art. Assisted with preparing head shot graphics. Assigned footstep and splash events to motion capture animations in Nuance. |
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ProficienciesSoftware: 3D Studio Max, Maya, Adobe Photoshop, Mudbox, CrazyBump, Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook. |
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Education |
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Post Graduate Studies: Texas A&M University, Department of Architecture Master of Visualization Sciences, Dec 1998 Undergraduate Studies: Texas A&M University, Department of Engineering Technology B. S. in Mechanical Engineering Technology May 1996 Educational focus on the following disciplines: |
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