NEXUS (2022 - 2024)

Nexus is a Sci-fi 3rd person shooter MOBA created in Unreal Engine 5 and released on PC.

During this project, I started as a Senior Artist, moved to Lead Artist, and then as Art Director.

Setup VFX development pipeline with reusable core components
- Create Niagara Systems with exposed parameters for Environmental, Weapon, and Ability VFXs
Setup 3D asset creation pipeline for efficient rendering performance and development
Create and maintain art development schedule & milestones
Responsible for creating and designing 3D environment assets for use in Unreal Engine 5 which are well optimised for Nanite and Lumen
Responsible for level design
Create framework for unreal materials to be used in Environment, VFX, and characters
Rendering & asset optimisations
- Identify and resolve CPU / GPU bottlenecks using profiling tools
Direct and provide feedback to internal artists and external contractors
Provide technical solution to output customisable Weapon and Character skins
Organise and manage several outsourcing studios for Character and Character skins
Led an internal team of 5 artists
Create Scripted Asset Actions to speed up repetitive tasks for Artists

Trailer

Ability to layer Moss, Dirt, and Rock textures
Moss makes use of vertex normal Z direction so it always spawns on the top of the mesh
Per mesh AO data is baked into vertex colour which is then used to layer dirt or moss into the crevices
Curvature data is baked into vertex colour and can be controlled with parameters
Uses sphere mask to blend colour variation of Side A vs Side B
Singular material instance applied to all the rock and cliff meshes to make full use of Nanite’s optimised drawcall capabilities
Blends landscape Runtime Virtual Texture to hide ground connection seams
Quality switches to ensure scalability across mulltiple hardware
All parameterised for full control of look and feel

Models were created in SpeedTree
Created master material for leaf and bark
AO data baked into Red Vertex Channel
Per leaf colour variation data baked into Blue Vertex Channel
Per leaf gradient root > tip data baked into Green Vertex Channel
Optimised for Nanite, Lumen, and Virtual Shadow Maps
All leaves and bark seen in the scene are driven by a single material instance, making full use of Nanite’s optimised instancing
Grass samples from the landscape RVT for smooth colour blending across the world
Wind material function makes use of Vertex Colour data for wind animation via WPO
Wind Blueprint writes to Material Parameter Collection to drive wind animation and direction

Modelled Hex pattern in cylindrical and sphereical shape
The effect is driven entirely by material, making it GPU based
Each hex face has a random value from 0 - 1 baked into vertex colour, used to control the WPO offset and the Opacity animation