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Experience

Riot Games
Senior Technical Artist, R&D [ October 2023 – Present ]

Procedural Environment & Layout Systems
• Architected a spline-driven modular building system in Unreal Engine 5 enabling per-room skinning while enforcing combat-critical structural metrics (wall penetration, door/window heights) to maintain gameplay consistency across building variations
• Implemented and extended UE5 PCG workflows for procedural road networks and environmental clutter placement, enabling rapid R&D iteration and scalable world layout experimentation.
• Developed procedural ground subdivision algorithms and lot layout systems (CityEngine & UE), optimizing terrain segmentation for instancing efficiency and runtime performance
• Contributed to early UE5 World Partition integration and large-map streaming setup; designed a custom “Cell Transformer” workflow to support instancing and scalable cell management
• Conducted in-engine asset validation within UE5 World Partition environments, performing targeted integration checks to ensure compatibility with custom instancing and cell transformation systems

Environment Pipeline & Asset Integration
• Expanded Maya-Unreal blockout round-trip workflow, preserving pivots and transforms for rapid level layout iteration
• Established a responsible GenAI-assisted prop pipeline to support high-volume environment asset generation, enabling self-service prototyping and accelerating large-world iteration while preserving artistic oversight and quality control
• Ported and extended Substance export pipeline with automated Unreal import and one-click source navigation, reducing texture iteration friction
• Delivered batch asset optimization utilities (mesh simplification, texture resizing) preventing performance regressions in large prototype environments

Riot Games
Senior Technical Artist, Central R&D [ July 2021 – September 2023 ]

Scalable Tooling & Cross-Team Infrastructure
• Architected RAPID, a unified CI/CD and AppLauncher distribution platform standardizing build, testing, and auto-update workflows for technical art tools across 7+ Riot game teams
• Drove cross-team alignment with infrastructure, Player Platform, and game teams to formalize a shared tools distribution standard, enabling sustainable adoption and contributor expansion across projects

Riot Games
Technical Art Manager, Legends of Runeterra [ November 2021 – June 2022 ]

• Established strong team culture and identity; opened channels for open communication across initiatives
• Set quarterly expectations with each member, focusing on professional growth and project impact
• Aligned priorities with engineering, art, and production teams across LoR initiatives
• Built quarterly roadmaps in conjunction with measurable team effort capacities
• Identified high impact in-engine iteration inefficiencies with supportive metrics, technical proposals and success KPIs
• Reduced in-engine developers’ churn by >500hrs/week combined

Embodied, Inc.
Senior Technical Artist [ March 2019 – October 2021 ]

• Revamp content and asset pipelines, reducing dependencies and simplify code-base support
• Increase content iteration flexibility and reduce turnaround time from 3 weeks to 30 minutes
• Establish consistently paced software release-cycle
• Implement code-review and git-merging processes
• Team lead for various tool development efforts

USC Institute for Creative Technologies
Senior Technical Artist [ June 2016 – February 2019 ]

• Designed and developed input gestures, visual languages for mobile, AR, and VR
• Oversaw and optimized rendering and memory latencies to fit within technical-budget
• Lead production and engineering teams to design and develop new projects, technologies, and research concepts
• Redesigned engine asset containers as standalone objects with exposed setup requirements
• Designed facial animation capture pipeline that increased speed and reduced artists’ technical dependencies for rapid iteration times

Technical Artist II [ May 2013 – June 2016 ]

• Developed advanced character skinning workflows that reduce time & effort from 2 hours to 5 minutes per iteration
• Augmented production shader technology by developing streamlined custom shaders (ie. for skin & hair)
• Formulated high level strategies with programmers to centralize and transition technologies from art and research into production while lowering production boundaries for agile in-house research groups
• Adapted game and Maya user interface design patterns to reduce friction in user experience based on usability testing
• Mentored & trained 15 artists to use in-house production tools & workflows

Technical Artist I [ January 2011 – May 2013 ]

• Developed authoring tools to streamline the artist iteration/workflows from highly technical specifications
• Created highly realistic AAA caliber art content (vehicles, characters, buildings, props, terrains)
• Built PyMEL-Qt middleware APIs for Maya UI, greatly simplifying integration between core functionalities and front end
• Expedited QA feedback on visual design and system design through rapid prototyping
• Served art and programming teams while fully handling weekly task duties and deadlines

Junior Artist [ June 2010 – January 2011 ]

• Explored industry leading authoring tools & engines and adapted best practices for art team production
• Built Unity levels & environments that have realistic layouts and stunning visuals
• Migrated Maya tools and UI to PyMEL an QT from a fully MEL environment
• Brought consistent creative vision, passion, design principles and excellent communication skills
• Collaborated with multiple groups to provide artistic support in modeling, texturing and graphic design

USC Davis School of Gerontology
Graphic Designer [ February 2009 – August 2009 ]

• Created Gerontology school print and web publishing materials (handbooks, recruitment materials, etc)
• Created design templates for the department's future publications
• Improved processes for review and feedback, thus increased efficiency and clarity
• Maintained the integrity of school and University identities

Skills
Animation	Model/Texture	Rigging/Skinning
Compositing	Particle Effects	Scripting
Graphic Design	Photography	Shader Development
Interaction Design	Workflow Design	Tools Development
Lighting	Rapid Prototyping	UI/UX Design
Motion Capture

Shipped Titles

Legends of Runeterra (link)

• Led effort to standardize assets validation and performance tests for on-device performance, including automation and vendor management

Bravemind / STRIVE [ Stress Resillience in Virtual Environments ]

• Led art content creation, level integration, layout and composition of large, open world environments
• Incorporated strong understanding of geology, rock formations, terrain, and foliage to render expert, realistic immersive level environments
• Designed character and vehicle damage state systems (for modeling, texture, and triggering)
• Implemented character rigging and skinning in Maya for injury customization to invoke strong, realistic experiences & visuals for PTSD therapy
• Designed & implemented item/vehicle mounting, road network systems
• Modeled and textured high quality console grade hero-humvee (interior, exterior, damage states)
• Developed numerous special effects for key scenarios, including explosions, fire, smoke, blood, and river effects
• Captured and processed motion capture into accessible files

INOTS [ Immersive Naval Officer Training ] / ELITE [ Emergent Leader Immersive Training Environment ]

• Developed and created new shaders with sub-surface scattering, fresnel, and anisotropic for improved character fidelity narrowing the gap to visual photorealism
• Spearheaded the effort to standardize character rigs down to male/female generic types
• Implemented NGUI, uGUI UX/UI prefabs, templates, workflows & best practices to minimize integration effort and maximize UI flexibility
• Optimized collective team work time effectively by upgrading legacy XML and efficiently recreating large database of markup content, reducing 6-8 months' worth of effort down to 2 weeks

SPS [ Standard Patient Studio ]
Won Gold Medal at 2015 Serious Play Awards (Healthcare category)

• Led & managed an art team of three to create over 50 fully rigged characters
• Increased character assembly and iteration speeds greatly by removing rigging bottlenecks for modelers
• Standardized character rigs and proportions to reduce library size and expand interchangeability
• Implemented a detail oriented approach to examine and solve problems with content from subcontractors
• Directed hair modeling/texturing technique, shading, and styling for more natural hair
• Developed advanced real time hair shader for soft hair and smooth geometry transitions

 

PAL [ Personal Assistant in Life-Long Learning ]

• Led user interface visual design and architecture to create an engaging & efficient user experience
• Simplified information architecture with user-centered design
• Streamlined interaction design with wireframes and mockups based on goals & specifications
• Collected quantitative metrics, including conversion rate and satisfaction survey, in order to examine user interface usability and improve further iterations
• Developed clickable prototypes to evaluate design solutions against identified scenarios, user and business goals