James O'Donnell
www.jamesodonnell.info

Shipped Titles

• Forza Motorsport 3 (Xbox 360)
• Forza Motorsport 4 (Xbox 360)
• Forza Motorsport 5 (Xbox One, Launch Title)
• Forza Motorsport 6 (Xbox One, TBD Holiday 2015)

Software Knowledge

• Photoshop
• 3dsmax
• Pixologic zBrush
• Microsoft PIX
• Visual Studio

Language Knowledge

• Maxscript (extensive)
• C# and XAML (extensive)
• HLSL (DX9) (some)
• C++ (some)
• Powershell (some)
• MSBuild (some)

Relevant Experience

• Manager – Arthur Shek, Technical Director, (425) 703 - 2007 ex. 32007
• Shipped Forza Motorsport 4 for the Xbox 360, Forza Motorsport 5 as a launch title for the Xbox One, and Forza Motorsport 6.
• Worked with environment leads throughout the development of Forza Motorsport 4 to research and author HLSL shaders and acted as the owner of the HLSL shader library
• Developed C# tooling and pipelines to expedite content iteration
• Responsible for Maxscript tool authoring and ownership of the studio MXS codebase, contributed to by multiple developers
• Mentored junior technical artists and tools developers to strengthen their software development skillset and train them in the pipelines they would be working with at Turn 10
• Code reviewed developer work across the tools department
• Responsible for triaging and resolving user issues across the studio
• Served as a fulcrum for cross-team efforts, relied on by test leads, art leads, and engine developers, through comprehensive understanding of the processes, trade-offs, and challenges faced by those respective teams

• Manager – Joakim Wejdemar, President, (206) 383 - 6437
• Produced level art content for an unannounced Unreal Engine 3.0 project by Timegate Studios.

• Manager – Jim McQuillan, Creative Director of Visual Design, (425) 739 - 4969
• Prepared Halo: Reach content for use by external partners for toy production.

• Manager – Matt Collins, Environment Art Lead, (425) 722 - 4416
• Worked on Forza Motorsport 3, a first-party AAA title for the Xbox 360 platform.
• Created realistic and highly accurate environment art assets for real-world race tracks.
• Developed HLSL shaders for environment art in conjunction with lead artists, including procedurally animated vertex shaders.
• Produced Maxscript tools for artists to help expedite time-consuming tasks.

• Responsible for proof-reading and editing strategy guides and articles for the Company of Heroes section of GameReplays.org, a website dedicated to competitive RTS and FPS gaming.
• Wrote a 3000+ word article with statistical analysis and graphs to prove the existence of a patch error in Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts patch 2.102, later confirmed by the developers as an accurate report.

• Responsible for modeling and skinning work for new meshes in the Battlefield 2 engine; includes experience working with generating and utilizing normal maps.
• Won fourth place for ModDB's 2007 “Mod of the Year” awards, as well as second place in “Best Unreleased Mod” in both 2005 and 2006.
• Mod team website: http://www.fhmod.org

Educational Background

• Savannah College of Art and Design – Savannah, Georgia
• Bachelor of Fine Arts - Interactive Development/Game Design ; Magna Cum Laude