CREATH CARTER
SENIOR TECH, VFX, AND INTERACTIONS ARTIST
To the Ruffnauts Development Team and Vinci Games Hiring Artists,
My name is Creath Carter; I'm a digital artist for interactive media with 25 years of experience, and I'm interested in your Senior Tech Artist role. I have a very broad skill set and technical understanding of our medium that has spanned AAA and independent studios, and has given me production experience in most positions of a game art team. I've worked with environment art, characters, rigging, animation, sculpting, VFX, materials/shaders, and UI. Over that time I have incorporated formal game design, tech-art, leadership, and independent development skills into my work, and I think I am one of the strongest candidates for this position.
For more than twelve years I've been heavily invested in modern VR platform development, beginning with Valve's initial prototype hardware and growing through the AR/XR evolution on mobile. I have worked extensively with Unity and the Vive platform as a principal developer on many projects across commercial, industrial, academic, and experimental applications for both mobile, desktop, and bespoke platforms.
Please explore the samples of my work on this page, and I hope my skills and experience are worth consideration for this role.
Ruffnaughts VR
The Ruffnauts content seen here are models I created in roughly half a day for this application, and are composites of screenshots of sculpted, posed, models in their native DCC applications with a quick photoshop pass.
I also played several hours of the game and really enjoyed myself! The visual aesthetic of the characters and their technical implementation was fun and impressive, and I've had multiple sessions so far. Some of your work fills me with absolute joy.
My familiarity with mobile platform limitations, and my desire to see the VR platform survive and grow so I can realize my own ideas, make this an amazing opportunity for me. I would love to be a part of your team, making bouncy cute pet interactions shaped from the dreams of screaming children.
ENVIRONMENT ART
Environment and atmosphere were my first love in games, and I have been an Environment Artist, Level Designer, and MMO Worldbuilder at different points in my career. I have comprehensive knowledge of the full environment art pipeline, from concepts and look development, preproduction estimates, asset organization, sculpting, modeling, texturing, on through to engine implementation, with optimization, lighting and collision passes. I have worked with hand-crafted modeling, terrain engine heightmaps, voxel-based engines, modular 3D "tiles", and have extensive experience with most supporting systems like world-streaming, geometry LODs, procedural generation, lighting and atmospheric systems.
CHARACTER ART, ANIMATION, RIGGING
I began my professional career processing mocap data as a Cinematic Artist on EA's Godfather game, but bringing characters, creatures, and objects to life through unique designs and colorful hand animation is another aspect of creativity I could pursue exclusively. While I can author rigs in Maya, 3dsMax, and Blender, 3ds Max's CAT system has been my primary partner for rigging and animation for 15 years.
TECH ART, VFX, ENGINEERING
On larger teams I have most often found myself acting as the cross-disciplinary liaison between art, engineering, and design. When I am not hands-on as an artist, tech-artist, or generalist, I am managing art assets, external content provider schedules, developing pipelines and tools, and maintaining best practices for my teams.
FURTHER QUALIFICATIONS
VR / AR / XR DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE
Boston Hackathon VR Bender, 2014
I began developing with VR platforms in 2014, with the first Boston VR Hackathon and the prototype HTC Vive.
Harvard Academic Projects, 2016-2018
I worked with Archimedes Digital for the Harvard Dreaming of the Sphinx installation at the Semitic Museum, as well as the Egyptology Department's Virtual-Telepresence project, their Boston-Shanghai Online VR platform for guided tours and lectures of all major Giza Plateau structures using photogrammetry.
HitPoint Studios / Niantic Projects, 2016-2022
With HitPoint Studios I began working with the Google Tango, the first mobile AR platform, in a technical artist role that spanned the full spectrum of project art needs. We released commercial work for Crayola, NBC, Disney, and many prototypes and research projects for many different clients.
HitPoint Studios had several years of partnership with Niantic, that resulted in many experimental projects and unreleased prototypes.
Video showcases content from the Harvard Giza Telepresence Project.
MULTIDISCIPLINARY ROLES
Game Engines
Unity
Unreal
Godot
Cocos
Software Fluency
3DS Max
Maya
Blender
Photoshop
Zbrush
Gaea
Substance
Collaboration
Atlassian
Notion
Figma
Tech-Art
Game development is my favorite game; it offers me the most organic, unique, and challenging puzzles of any interactive experience I could imagine. I gravitated toward the intersection of the technical and visual roles early on, wanting to create my own projects within the medium, but I also thrive off of problem-solving.
Character Design and Creation
I have a sound knowledge of anatomy, strong animation principles, can author character rigs, facial rigs and blendshapes. I've studied character design extensively through my own work, online lectures, and every game and film I absorb. While environments are my first love, characters are the most interesting to bring to life.
Software Proficiency
I am fluent in nearly all standard 2D and 3D DCC applications, and have working knowledge of most major game engines. For 15 years I've used the finite state machine addon PlayMaker with Unity to develop projects for academic, commercial, and independent releases under my own labels or as a contractor. I have deep and extensive knowledge of the Unity game engine up to version 6.x.
LIVE-OPS AND COMMUNITY
Worldbuilding
I designed and authored world content for ongoing updates on Lord of the Rings Online. Our team paid close respect to the source material, lore, and world design, regularly interacting with players to inform future goals and establish cadence of updates.
Continuing Update Schedules
I created visual gameplay content for free-to-play Facebook Sims-clone, Little Dream Home. Our team maintained weekly updates for >10 years for 2D, and then later 3D, platforms.
Game Development Communities
For nearly 10 years I have co-organized and hosted monthly game developer meetups, game jams, lectures, demo nights, and social events for my areas professionals, students, and independents.
Thank you for taking the time to review my materials. My love of VR, experience with Mobile platforms, and cross-disciplinary experience make me an ideal candidate for your Senior Tech-Art, VFX, and Interactions role.
Please see the links below for more examples of my work. You can see my current resume here; a full CV can be provided on request.
Regards,
Creath Carter
contact@creathcarter.com
Additional Project Credits for Work Shown
WithMe Environment Art
Art Director: Jem Gaylani
Lead Artist: Lulu Neel
Tech Art: Eric Iwasaki
Additional 3D Art: Casey Billadeaux
Lord of the Rings Online
Lead Worldbuilder: Ross Glover
Additional 3D Art: Mark Lizotte
Additional 3D Art: Brandon Bateman
Additional 3D Art: Tara Rueping
HitPoint Studios Games
2D Art/3D Art Support: Steve Forde
PGS Games
Art Direction: Nate Meltzer
2D Art: Dan Dussault
2D Art: David McCormack
Animation: Ryan Brown
Additional Tech Art: Wayne Darby