CV

A creative person whose aspirations are to work in the film, TV and/or gaming industry, I have created the following as a supplement to my CV as a more detailed outline of relevant works I have completed and contributed to on past projects:

My most recent role as a creative artist involved me using many different design tools and techniques to complete many differing types of projects. These included corporate 3d design and (product) visualization, stand design for exhibition shows and branding projects which involved logo design and stationary design (from business cards, to brochures and more). The main packages I used for branding projects are Photoshop, Publisher and illustrator.

Another project was to create a 3D animated video demonstrating how a new product from the (multinational) client company could fit into a companies supply chain and was to be used as a marketing tool. For this project, I was in control of all components from start to finish and produced this video myself. After initial disussion, I would propose a story board then we would work on it together to reach the final design draft, I would then bring this to life using industry standard packages Maya (for all 3D design and animation components), Flash (for some 2D animation components), Photoshop (for texture creation) and After Effects (for compositing, SFX, editing and final video rendering). The setting for this particular video was a warehouse and shows how the clients new ‘RFID’ software can be applied to a companies existing supply chain management scheme by overlaying their software in action onto the 3D animation behind, so it is clear what the software is used to do and where.
The final video was created in several formats and supplied to an external source for a voiceover track to be added.

I have also recently been involved in creating a level for the upcoming game ‘the 13th doll’, which is the follow to the successful ‘7th guest’ series of games. My involvement was to make a crypt room, with several tombs in it. I created this as well as a full IK controlled skeleton to go inside the tombs. Whilst I wasn’t responsible for creating the storyline or puzzles in this game, after speaking with the creators and expressing my love for games in general, I was often asked for opinions and input or current storyboards and game detail.

Another role has seen me work as a technical compliance tester for Microsoft Xbox titles. This was a fun job where I was given a maximum of 4 hours to test each in-development Microsoft Xbox title that is received in. At some point in their development pipeline, every game which is released in Europe for the Xbox will have been made available for me or a colleague in my department for compliance testing. This includes huge AAA titles such as Halo 2, Fable and FIFA Soccer. Compliance testing was not simply playing the game to look for errors (this was done in a different department) but consisted of having an Xbox (dev-kit) connected to a pc for specific tests to be run, such as how the Xbox title reacts under stringent low storage conditions and checking hard disk saving times to within milliseconds. The same title may pass through for testing up to 6 or 7 times, or even more, until it is completely compliant with MS Xbox standards. Some simple testing methods, such as regression testing, simply involved running through walkthrough style steps written on a previous testing session to see if a previous crash is still present. Other more bespoke methods involved looking through every menu and screen on the game or placing specific content onto the Xbox Hard disk via the PC link to see how that specific title reacts when subjected to different conditions, such as would it save the current content if disconnected from Xbox live by having the Ethernet cable pulled out. For other testing methods, please see my CV.

During my time at university, my final year project involved me creating a simple game of pool using state-of-the-art haptic technology, which means you can not just play the game, but feel it too, for example, feel the cue striking the cue ball. There were three people involved in the group who all had to create separate parts and collaborate successfully to create the final product. Ultimately, this project won an exclusive award.

Employment History

Education