Resume

Overview

As an experienced and adaptable modeler with a passion for building high quality 3D models, I will enhance your company’s success by:

• Developing scenes and environments free of floating objects, unfinished textures, and modeling gaps
• Reducing development time by creating reusable assets and building libraries of objects for new environments
• Investigating opportunities to optimize game engine performance by defining culling boundaries
• Ensuring quality by looking for buried or floating items and unfinished models in newly built levels and worlds

Key Skills and Knowledge

Animation and Motion: 3D Studio Max, Maya, Premiere, After Effects, Flash, Cinema 4D

Game Engine: Gamebryo, Unreal Ed, Q3Radiant

Graphic Design: Photoshop, Painter, Dreamweaver, Quark Express, Illustrator, AutoCAD, Pro-Engineer

General Applications: Microsoft Office, Windows 7, Mac OS X

Professional Experience

Digital Graphic Artist (Contractor)                                                                                                        

3D animation and still image projects                                                                                                                                    2004 – Present

Reading about and experimenting with new technologies is critical to staying abreast of the changes in my field. Putting new skills to practical use is key to mastering them, so I seek out independent projects. Many clients continue to engage me as new projects arise. Highlights of past projects include:

• New Breed Games [2/2012 – Present]: Creating assets and textures as an early member of a distributed team to deliver a pilot demonstrating a new game concept.
• Dukane Corporation[2004 – Present]: Delivered concepts, models, textures, and animations for 10+ projects. Every project requires working with the customer to understand the product features and key aspects to highlight in each animation sequence. Projects include:
  • Demonstration of precision movements of internal machine mechanisms which cannot be seen with video
  • Fly-over view of a sales booth enabling the sales team to prepare for a major trade show
  • Animations used in a sales proposal to demonstrate to the customer the alternative implementation options for a complex custom system
  • Several animated holiday cards to showcase products and help promote business
  • Pulse Energy [8/2011 – 9/2011]: Working closely with a UX/IA Specialist and a Graphic Designer, I created a 3D cityscape of Charlotte, NC displayed on an interactive touch screen kiosk in the lobbies of more than 40 downtown skyscrapers showcasing energy savings. We successfully delivered under extremely tight timelines with rapid iterations to ensure the project was ready for a presentation by senior executives to the Obama administration and a press announcement at a trade show.
  • Aristatek, Inc. [6/2010]: Generated a 3D animation from CAD data and PDF specifications highlighting the behavior of chemical spills in different meteorological conditions.
  • Applied Robotics, Inc. [6/2006]: Created a 3D animation allowing sales people to accurately depict the functionality of a new custom tool concept for palletizing sack-type products.

Microsoft, Redmond, WA
Global application, operating system and gaming   software company					4/2011   – 6/2011 & 2/2012 – Present
Kinect NUI (Natural User Interface) Team, Test Associate “Tagger”Member of a 30 person team creating   animated rigs from infrared 3D video data captured by the Kinect system. The   rigs are used to improve the algorithms for body recognition. My scope of   work includes:   Creating rigs using   existing Microsoft Kinect tool set   Serving as a QA   representative for our team and working closely with developer personnel to   ensure rigs accurately map to the data   Reviewing  teammates’ work to identify and correct   errors prior to submission for final QA review   Writing bug reports and   submitting enhancements for the in-house Kinect development tool chain
Labor Works,Bellevue, Washington
Day labor general   work force staffing	1/2012   – 4/2012
Contract general labor   work on a part-time basis involving general building services for companies   needing temporary labor to move between facilities, or to re-arrange   equipment within an existing facility. Activities ranged from extensive   cleaning of facilities to building and installing new furniture. End clients   included Paul Davis Restoration, Terminix, ServPro, and Corporate Moving   Systems
Aristatek   Incorporated, Laramie, Wyoming
Develops   software to assist bio-hazard first responders	5/2008 – 5/2010
Lead Artist and Render Farm   Manager Lead artist accomplishments and responsibilities included:   Reduced overall bit   count and ensured scene consistency by defining standard color schemes and   shared textures across the project   Performed quality   control on levels created by other artists with special attention spent on   eliminating gaps in scenes and ensuring optimal polygon count before sending   to customers   Consistently delivered   projects on time after estimating and setting work schedules   Self-taught environment   tree culling to facilitate faster playback by the game engine   Took initiative to   simplify customer handoff process by learning XML and writing definitions to   place custom portals in existing environments   Constructed high   resolution assets for virtual MMO (massively multiplayer online)   training for the National Guard’s JSRTS project   Developed more realistic drawings by   augmenting initial sketches provided by the customer with information from   Google Maps   Responsible   for managing and mentoring two artists, one co-located and the other remote Render farm management responsibilities included:   Detecting and   troubleshooting render jobs that were not rendering properly; correcting and   testing on a render farm node with small frame bursts to ensure problems   would not re-occur; repaired jobs were re-queued for full rendering   Cataloging rendering   errors so they could be quickly and easily corrected if they occurred again   Configuring render   operations across real and virtual machines to ensure the render farm ran   efficiently and during the most economical times   Provided 24×7   monitoring of the render farm servers during critical stages of projects   Improved the   organization of the output of the render farm by developing a structured file   naming convention   Developed an archive   strategy allowing render output to be recalled, if necessary, without   creating issues for future renders
Charlestowne Kitchen & Bath, St. Charles, Illinois
Designs custom kitchens and   baths	2/2004   – 5/2008
Detailer – Layout and Design   Achieved a 50%   reduction in design and layout time by recognizing a need for and creating a   catalog of over 500 templates of kitchen and bath components   Took initiative to   learn Stonevision CAM software to consolidate a four person process to   require only three people   Extended software   functionality to support new granite router bits   Consistently met   deadlines and worked overtime to support production schedule while enrolled   as a full-time student at The Illinois Institute of Art   Mentored a colleague in   design process to ensure backup coverage and spare layout capacity   Demonstrated mastery of   software and knowledge of stone when programming CNC machines to minimize   waste and breakage, and to optimize stone grain
Dukane Corporation,St. Charles, Illinois
Global provider of equipment   and related tooling for welding thermoplastic components						11/2003   – 2/2004
Intern   Designed hot-plate   welding tools to make a wine cooler and deviled egg tool holder using   Pro-Engineer CAD software
American   Sports Wear, Incorporated, Montgomery,   Illinois
Producer of custom printed   athletic clothing		7/2003   – 9/2003
Graphic Artist (Contract)   Designed logos taking   into account customer ideas, needs, and cost constraints   Printed and applied   heat press logos on hats and shirts, and packaged for delivery   Printed vellum films,   inspected for accuracy and passed to silkscreen painter for production   By learning quickly and   working efficiently, was able to work through order backlog faster than   hiring manager expected, resulting in fulfilling the contract requirements   ahead of schedule
Vector   Marketing Corporation,   Union, New Jersey
Domestic sales division of cutlery   manufacturer Cutco Corporation			5/2001   – 1/2003
Sales Associate (Part-time)   Consistently expanded   sales pipeline with an average of three new referrals from each sales call   Sold over $5,000 during   the first summer and earned adviser status
Berkeley   Wine Company,Berkeley Heights, New Jersey
Wine and liquor store				3/2001   – 12/2002
Sales and Stock Clerk   Replenished open   shelves and helped customers with selections   Operated the cash   register and lottery machine   Organized and cleaned   the storage room, and unloaded new shipments
Fowler   Equipment Company,   Union, New Jersey
Specializes in the design of   commercial and apartment laundry facilities					8/1998   – 9/1999
Graphic Artist   Supported five sales   people as a Visio layout artist, creating laundry facility layouts and sales   proposals   Designed forms used by   Customer Service and Billing departments to collect customer information   Provided basic IT   support for small issues and coordinated with offsite IT support contractor   for larger issues

Education

The Illinois Institute of   Art, Schaumburg, IL	B.F.A. – Honors
Game Art and Design	3/2004 – 9/2007
Full Sail University,   Winter Park, FL	A.S.
Computer Animation	9/1999 – 12/2000
Ferris State University,   Big Rapids, MI	A.A.S.
Visual Communications	8/1996 –  5/1999

Jon Clark3dmedium@gmail.com
1 (847) 606-5482