JASON "REDMOTION" WELLS

I am currently based in London, UK and until May 09 was working in the Architectural industry. I am now focusing on gaining employment developing another one of my creative passions: video games. This is not a decision I make lightly or with inexperience of the field.

ENVIRONMENT ARTIST/3D GENERALIST EXPERIENCE

June 2006 - Present

Black Mesa:Source - Half Life 2 modification (Source engine) link to homepage

Position: Environment textures and models

Responsibilities include the creation of fully textured environment models, from reference/concept to compiled in-game asset. All assets were either developed to level designers requirements and requests or through the task management system. This portfolio website contains a selection of the work I have completed on this project over the past 2.5 years.

Please contact me for references.

March 2006 - August 2006

Birthstar:Frontline (became Talon-5 ) - Half Life 2 modification (Source engine)

Position: Environment textures and models

Responsibilities included environment texture creation, material setup and application into levels using the Hammer level editor.

October 2005 - Present

2d/3d DXF importers, Sunpath addon and other scripts for Softimage XSI & blog

I have developed - and continued to support - a .dxf file format importer plugin for Softimage XSI 3d software as well as other tools (Sunpath, CAD style transform tools) for assisting in the creation of Architectural Visualisation. (The motivation to make these was mainly due to Archiviz not being an industry Softimage officially supports.) Details of this side of my work is available at the redmotion blog.

KEY SOFTWARE SKILLS

Softimage XSI - 3.5 years to present - 3.5 years to present - full knowledge - modeling, rendering, material creation, AO/normal map baking, UV mapping/unwrapping, rigging, compositing, scripting, plug-in programming & Mental Ray rendering

Adobe Photoshop (v4 up to & inc CS4) - Texture creation techniques/ Architectural Presentation / Photomontage/ Compositing

Zbrush 3.1 & Mudbox

Visual Basic/ VBscript/ java/ C# programming - 10+ years of general computer programming experience (non-professional)

Sketch Up - 2 years

QUALIFICATIONS

BA Architecture - Part I (P/T) - London Metropolitan University, London, UK (1998-2000)

BA(Hons) Interior Design (F/T) - Surrey Institute of Art and Design, Farnham, UK (1993-95)

HND Spatial Design (F/T) - Kent Institute of Art and Design, Rochester, UK (1991-93)

BTEC ND in Art & Design - Basingstoke College of Technology, UK (1989-91)

PERSONAL VIDEOGAME PROJECTS

My most recent (released) videogame creation was The Grand Machines (for the PhysX demo competition - for which it got 4th place - created during the time it was owned by Ageia). It was developed in my spare time while in full time employment. It is still available for download here. and can be found as a demo on the Game Creators Dark Game Studio product, currently selling well at The Game Creators website.

Critique: I should have created more detailed, aesthetically distinct environments with better puzzles that utilized the concept of the small and big spheres better (idea was inspired by Head over Heels - 2 co-operating characters) The control scheme for the entry was simple and a little unintuitive. Other elements which would have made the games structure more enjoyable are checkpoints which would have returned you to a point further along the level (rather than returning the player to the beginning) and removing the lives system. (These two parameters resulted in the game being quite retro and dated difficulty-wise).

I have recently redesigned the control system to utilize a joypad and better keyboard/mouse based control - It now feels far more fluid, intuitive and closer in feel to Metroid Prime or Super Monkey Ball. I may try to develop a new take on these themes sometime in the future.

Developed between June 1993 - July 1995

Catacombs of the Undead Sorcerer

I played my first videogame in 1984 and I have been creating videogames (programming and artwork) since the early 1990s.

Catacombs of the Undead Sorcerer was my first 'published' title, designed and developed for the Atari ST; using STOS and Neochrome; published by a small Public Domain software provider in North England. It was a 2d dungeon crawler-style game in a similar vein to Nethack and featured procedurally generated the dungeon levels.

While I did not set out to publish the game - I just wanted to share it with people - the company to whom I sent it seemed to think it was worthy of publication. They asked me to make some interface changes, which I did and we drew up a contract. It was released soon afterwards.

OTHER WORK EXPERIENCE

Below, I have included my previous work experience. While this is not relevant to videogame development, I feel that it does indicate that I am able to hold down a job over the long term; that I am committed to my work and meet my employers expectations; that I am a trusted and respected employee.

Please contact me for references.

September 2003 - May 2009

Leslie Jones Architects [London] - Position: Architectural Assistant/Technician, 3d Visualisation Lead

Working within various project teams, producing documentation, drawings and images for several on-site and imminent construction projects.

November 2001-September 2003

Sutton Griffin Morgan Architects [London] - Position: Assistant Designer & 3d Visualisation Lead

Responsibilities included drafting 2d arrangement/ working drawings and visualisations of design proposals; often taking on a design role, creating fully realized and convincing building models for presentation and design evaluation purposes. (2D and 3D AutoCAD 2000, Accurender and Photoshop.)

February 2001-October 2001

Urban View [London] - Position: Assistant & Senior Designer

Joining a start up practice taking an active role in concept design and detailed planning applications for various clients. Responsibilities included creation of complete planning packages for a number of small scale projects.

September 1996-February 2001

BDG/McCOLL [London] - Position: CAD Designer & 3d Visualiser

Responsibilities included creation of realistic visuals of design proposals and working and presentation drawings.