I've worked as an Environment Artist at BioWare on Star Wars: The Old Republic for over four years.

Belsavis is a remote prison planet in Star Wars: The Old Republic. The vast majority of its surface is covered by ice, though volcanic activity creates warm, lush pockets of tropical jungle. These warm pockets were originally utilized by an ancient race of advanced aliens called the Rakata for keeping prisoners. Even if one were to escape from their confines, they'd have nowhere to run except the hostile ice wastelands that surround them. After the disappearance of the Rakata, the Republic has attempted to reclaim the planet and use the prisons for their own purposes.

For Belsavis, I was a core part of a two person team that helped solidify the look and feel of the planet, and was involved in every stage of its production.

My main duties on Belsavis included a very large amount of terrain sculpting, exterior propping, texture painting, asset outsourcing, in-house asset refinement and modification, the visual design and implementation (lighting and propping) of dozens of interiors, and optimization. Above is an example of exterior propping and terrain sculpting.

Another example of exterior propping I did on Belsavis.

Color was something we wanted to emphasize on Belsavis to make it unique. We used coral reef references for color choices. To give the impression of water, the fog was given a rich, saturated blue. The exterior foliage and environment props were given secondary colors to evoke coral and marine life.

Above is a hallway of an ancient Rakata vault. I was in charge of supervising the entire production of the Rakata modular architecture set as well as the entire Rakata prop set. I came up with multiple lighting schemes as well as the initial prototype dungeons that would later be heavily featured in the planet. It was a great opportunity to continue with what was established in Knights of the Old Republic.

The planet Taris played a key role in the original Knights of the Old Republic. It was once a Sith controlled city planet that was bombarded to the point of near annihilation by Darth Malak in a vain attempt to kill Jedi Bastila Shan. The Old Republic picks up 300 years after the events of KOTOR and takes players back to revisit Taris, now an overgrown bombed out shell of the great city it once was. In The Old Republic, quests largely surround the events of both factions of the game attempting to reclaim Taris and resettle it.

As with Belsavis, I was on the core Taris team throughout the entire production of the planet. As a fan of Knights of the Old Republic, I was absolutely thrilled to get the opportunity to help shape The Old Republic's vision of what Taris had become.

My roles on Taris included a larger role in the planet's exterior visual design, terrain sculpting, texture painting, asset outsourcing, in-house asset refinement and modification, interior visual design, interior propping, interior lighting, and optimization.

The initial concept art of Taris featured cooler tones and placed much of the environment engulfed in water. As the design evolved, we changed the color palette to be much warmer and desaturated, featuring the overgrowth of the planet with sunlight streaking through the ruins.

A big part of Taris in Knights of the Old Republic was the swoop bike gangs. We put in destroyed sections of the old swoop bike tracks as a nod to the original game.

Pirates have set up bases all throughout Taris. I visually designed, lit, and propped every pirate dungeon on the planet.

Above is another pirate stronghold. I wanted these interiors to feel dank and dusty and evoke the feeling of being inside an old cellar.

By using a lot of warm tones in the fog and lighting and by hanging tarps from the ceilings, I was able to give these areas a unique feeling and made them stand out from the traditional color schemes associated with the Repubic and Imperial factions.

Above is a shot of The Endar Spire, a ship from Knights of the Old Republic that was shot down by Darth Malak. The ships's structure remained largely intact after the attack and it crashed on the surface of Taris. Players get the chance to revisit the ship's ruins in The Old Republic. As with the pirate dungeons, I was responsible for visual design, lighting, and propping of the entire Endar Spire. In addition to this, I was also responsible for the blockout.

My initial lighting scheme (largely consisting of blown-out reds) was changed to accomodate a quest that involved turning on the ship's lights as the player progress through the dungeon. This change ended up adding a lot of tension to the quest, as well as an opportunity to create highly atmospheric, dramatic lighting.

Click above to watch a play-through of the Endar Spire.

Both factions of the game come to Taris at different points in their progression through the story. For Imperial players, we decided to change the environment's time of day to night time.

The change in time gave us the chance to let players who played through the story with both factions experience Taris in a different way.

This room was a one day task. The cinematic it was used in called for a small archive of people who had been frozen in carbonite. I did all propping, lighting, and visual design.

Above is another room that was a one day task. This room was set up as a remote, small laboratory that had to accommodate conversations, cinematics, and combat. I did all propping, lighting, and visual design.

The vast majority of assets in The Old Republic were made using outsourcing with internal supervision, modifications, and refinement. I oversaw the creation of dozens of assets ranging from modular sets to props. In an effort to keep up my modeling skills, I took on the entire creation of a neutral faction ship that I thought had an interesting design.

I have taken as many opportunities as I can to work on and build models during the production of The Old Republic. Since almost all assets were built through outsourcing, I made my own opportunities to keep active in asset creation and production techniques. This ship was done in my spare time.

The ship's concept art didn't flesh out the back engine's guts, which provided me with a fantastic opportunity to incorporate my own designs.

Above is a shot of the ship in-game on a landing pad in Coruscant.

The Old Republic's production spanned many years and several stylistic shifts along the way. During that time, some older assets began to look out of place and dated. I took it upon myself to redesign and improve a few small props.

This gun rack was reworked in about a day. It was already heavily placed throughout the game, so I was unable to change the dimensions and texture resolution. My focus was to update the asset and match the established style of the game.

I earned my BFA in Fine Art with an emphasis on drawing and painting in 2005 from Iowa State University. Towards the end of my undergraduate education, my interests began to shift towards 3D and game art. I decided to go back to school in 2007 and earned a diploma in 3D Animation and Visual Effects with a specialization in modeling and texturing from the Vancouver Film School in British Columbia, Canada. Below is my VFS student reel as well as a few renders from my final student project.

Click above to watch my VFS Student Reel.

Above is a wireframe render of my student reel character, Damien.

Here is the fully textured and rendered version of Damien.