Daniel de Mira Gerlitz
Email: DanielGerlitz@Gmail.com
Phone: 604 319 2725
Summary of Qualifications:
Multidisciplinary 3D Art Director with experience in all areas of 3D production.
Strong leader in cross-dicipline collaboration and establishing production pipelines.
Technical skills including; Modeling, textureing, lighitng, cinematics, animation, vfx, tech art. In all industry stadard software.
Work Experience:
Archiact
Principal Art Director   September 2022 - Present
Directly managing other Art Directors and a multidisciplinary team of artists.
Directly providing Art Direction on game projects across all art disciplines; creation of environments, characters, lighting, vfx, tech art and concept art
Defining creative direction and asset specifications. Assembled reference libraries and mood boards, developed creative briefs for leads and individual artists.
Establishing and executing Art Direction solutions that simultaneously improve quality, speed and scope of game production. Established visual quality targets, production processes, and development workflows in an Unreal Engine game production.
Collaborated across disciplines to identify scope reductions and project efficiency improvements to meet deadlines. I doubled the velocity of art production of the existing team in the first month. Doubled the size and capacity of all art department disciplines in 2 months. Turned around a production timeline that was more than a year behind schedule to release on time and at target quality.
The Coalition - Microsoft
Art Manager   October 2020 - April 2022
Creating concept pitches and initial Art Direction for character art assets.
Providing Art Direction on characters art from 2D concept to 3D production to the highest quality standards as part of a first party game studio.
Creating concept pitches and initial Art Direction for character art assets.
Providing feedback, cross discipline communication and scheduling for art teams.
Hands on in creation of concept art and implementation of assets in engine.
Worked on multiple projects including Gears of War 5 and unannounced Unreal Engine 5 projects
Navigator Games
Studio Art Director   Jan 2020 - August 2020
Providing Art Direction on multiple game projects across all art disciplines
Establishing art department, visual quality targets and production process around Unity based development pipeline.
Leading development of cross discipline game features and strike teams.
Concurrently collaborating with executive leadership teams and publishing partners to drive the vision and creation of multiple mobile games.
Hands on in creation of in engine art assets, from character art to environments and lighting
Sun Machine Games
Art Director - Lead Artist   Jan 2020 - August 2020
Leading look development, art direction, technical art direction, of all 3D art assets across environments, characters, lighting, shaders and tech art.
Establish the art production pipeline, directing with outsource partners and mentoring in house staff, managing scope and scheduling of Art Department.
Leading development of cross discipline game features and strike teams.
Art Director and Principal Artist on a cross platform, Unreal Engine game.
Electronic Arts
Senior Environment Artist   Feb 2017 - Dec 2019
Spearheading art production workflow improvements including engine tools development.
Saved dozens of man months of production time by implementing new workflows
Leading teams of 3D artists in creation of stadiums and large scale environments
Responsible for stadium planning and greyblock, mentoring junior staff and pushing visual quality.
Creation of high quality 3D assets for in-engine cinematic moments and gameplay
Goldtooth Creative
Game Engine Lead   Feb 2016 - Feb 2017
Art Direction and Technical Direction of a team of mixed dicipline 3D artists and animators in relation to game engines including Unreal Engine, Unity and others.
Creative direction and execution of cinematic sequences for realtime game cinematics and rendered CG trailers.
Principal creation of cinematography, modeling, texturing, lighting and animation
Projects include Gears of War 4, Sea of Theives and Mass Effect: Andromeda, Recore
20th Century Fox - Halon
Unreal Engine Lead - Previsualization   Aug 2015 - Feb 2016
A Lead member of a previsualization team working to form the vision and cinematic experience for War for the Planet of the Apes for 20th Century Fox.
Lead research of the production pipeline. Teaching and guiding the entire team from supervisors to animators on working with the engine to raise visual quality.
Established the visual quality bar for the team in creating assets; characters, vehicles, props, vfx/particle effects, camera effects and animation in Unreal 4.
Lead Unreal 4 Artist, utilizing the Unreal 4 game engine to render cinematics that will inform the direction and shooting of the film. Principal 3D asset creator.
Visual College of Art and Design (VCAD)
Instructor   (Part Time) Jan 2015 - Aug 2016
Teaching 3D Character Modelling III to a mixed discipline class of students from gaming and animation programs in advanced modeling tools and workflows in Autodesk Maya.
Instruction on how to model a realistic anatomically correct character with emphasis on anatomical study, edgeflow and topology, and efficient modeling techniques.
Providing a role model, mentorship and guidance to classes of 20 student artists.
Nintendo - Next Level Games
Environment Artist   Jan 2015 - Aug 2015
Driving creation of entire environments for Nintendo�s next Metroid game.
Creating whole levels from concept to final polished environments and scenes.
Actively involved in executive level talks with studio and publisher management, creating and pitching game concepts, managing art timelines and schedules.
Working designers and programmers and artists to fully implement finished environments, vfx and cinematics utilizing 3DS Max and a proprietary game engine.
Electronic Arts
Worlds Artist   2014
Establishing creative direction of art pieces by creating 3D and 2D concepts.
Spearheaded visual style development and preproduction for several entire environments.
Created 3D environments for a Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare 2 in Frostbite Engine.
Involved in introducing a new PBR(Physically Based Rendering) look and workflow to the world art team. Created PBR Textures using Photoshop and Quixel Suite.
Creating high quality creative models using Maya and Frostbite Engine.
Creating a variety of 3D assets from vehicles to weapons, buildings, props and more
Gearbox - BlackBird Interactive
Senior Artist   2014
Acting as a Senior Generalist Artist I worked on all aspects of Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak that need art; including modeling, texturing, VFX and lighting
Spearheaded look development on Mesh based and particle based VFX systems in Unity
Guided studio development of art pipeline and tools using 3D Max, Photoshop and Unity. Tehnical development of shaders and look in Unity Engine.
Modeled, textured, and rigged detailed 3D vehicles for a vehicle fantasy RTS game
Legendary Pictures - The Third Floor
Previs Asset Builder, Previs Shot Creator   2013 - 2014
Creatively shot and animated previs film sequences for a major feature film, directing composition pacing and cinematography of assigned shots.
Built 3D props, environments, characters, lighting and vfx for a major feature film
Created shots by composing assets, environments, lighting and animating characters, cameras and background elements.
Created film previs from storyboards in Maya, managed shot delivery though ShotGun.
Zema Gamez
Lead 3D Artist   2012 - 2013
Acting as the 3D Lead and Principal 3D Artist on the team, I was responsible for performance budgeting, scheduling and laying out the development pipeline
Established Art direction, asset creation, design and technology and workflows.
Investigated, chose and implemented Unity as the studio�s engine technology.
Mentored junior staff, provided scheduling guidance to a interdisciplinary team.
Solely responsible for modeling, texturing, lighting, visual effects, level design, level rigging and assembling all environment assets on several multi-platform titles.
Gener8 Digital Media
Modeler & Animator   2011 - 2012
Modeled and animated stereoscopic 3D characters and environments for feature films including; Prometheus, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Ghost Rider and others.
Created stereoscopic 3D elements in Autodesk Maya for major motion pictures.
Modeled and animated 3D assets to match film plates for stereoscopic conversion.
Rabbit Hole Interactive
Environment Artist   2011
Completed creation of entire 3D environments for two game titles concurrently on a aggressive schedule.
Created art assets, models and textures using 3DS Max and Photoshop.
Created and populated environments with art assets in the Infernal Engine.
Responsible for creating LOD assets for new and legacy models.
Electronic Arts
Cinematic Camera Artist   2010
Created cinematic scenes for Fight Night: Champion�s non-interactive story scenes using Maya camera tools and motion capture data
Established direction for scenes and shots from script, creatively shot cameras and coverage, made preliminary edits and collaborated with editors for final cuts.
Acted as a liaison between the Environment Art team and the Cinematic Camera team when creating virtual sets for motion capture.
Worked with interdisciplinary team, teaching peers technical tools and workflows
Radical Entertainment
Junior Artist & Designer   2008 - 2010
Designed and created world geometry and placed props to facilitate gameplay.
Created props from concept art, keeping inline with the style of the game and existing assets
Created game design documentation, pitching new game mechanics and gameplay scenarios. Provided design balance feedback and documenting existing gameplay systems
Learned the export\import process to take raw assets from Maya to functional assets in game using Radicals proprietary technology.
Education:
Art Institute of Vancouver   Graduated 2008
Diploma in Game Art & Design
Created a successful game prototype from scratch with a group of peers at the Art Institute of Vancouver using the Unreal Engine.
Concepted, modeled, textured, exported, placed and light assets in the game.
Lead a small group of peers in creating an original board game.
Created from concept to completion a graduating demo reel.
Cariboo Hill Secondary   Graduated 2006
High School Diploma
Enrolled in 4 years of traditional and computer aided Drafting, recieveing the subject award for Drafting apon graduation.
Enrolled in Art, Acting, Creative writing for 5 years
References available upon request |