This demoreel and images below show environments that I was responsible for as a Level Artist for the videogame Warframe by Digital Extremes.

In good communication with a Level Designer and the Art Director I was responsible for the artistic layout composition in the assigned videogame environments. This was done by creating life in an otherwise static mockup by telling stories using a visual medium. All the while ensuring it is in line with any technical constraints and artistic direction.

All shown images except Duviri include both a first and second pass lighting and effects done by my hand. Most of the end-results received a final pass done by a designated lighting- and effects-artist. However my original setup was often respected and merely polished. There are some cases where I ended up doing the final lighting and effects as well, such as the Infested Orokin tileset.


Over the years I've had the pleasure and honor of working with a lot of talented people. Making videogame environments is a team effort and I couldn't have achieved the results shown below without the support and cooperation of all these wonderful members that were involved in the making of this content.
 
1999


Our first earthly city inspired theme on Warframe came with it's own challenges; Generating a believable, procedural city using Warframe physics and gameplay. We have characters that can wallrun, teleport, grapplehook, fly and change in to a tiny version of itself. All of these are things that we had to keep in mind. To do so we started designing a city that first of all felt believable when translated in to a procedural game and decide on a general area of said city; downtown/old city core. This was done using lots of individual kit pieces that were eventually randomly assembled using Houdini.Think wall pieces, window pieces, rooftop pieces, balcony attachments, etc. Once that was all working out well we started testing it on Warframe characters. This resulted in some changes to the scenery such as building height, ways to close off streets, doorways and other things that might not otherwise be as realistic in order to keep the gameplay fun and contained as possible.
The team had a blast working on something more grounded for variation. All the while still putting our own Warframe spin on it with infestation, alternate military presence and time traveling.
 
Duviri Paradox


For Duviri I started out doing research and development on all the natural related thematics while in constant communication with both the Art Director as well as the Environment Art team who were making the objects I needed.
On a 100x200m space I tested out both foliage growth and rock formations on multiple environments, ranging from meadows and gardens to forests and swamps. Once approved they would first get automatically applied using a scatter system so we could cover and test large environments for gameplay, visuals and performance. Later I would go back and adjust most of these placements for optimal story telling and compositional results that best matched my initial tests.

I ended up doing foliage and rock placements as well as dirt roads and hiking trails on all 3 main islands, the Amphitheatre island and the Fractal Pasture in the Undercroft. Last but not least, I set up little story telling elements such as patio-tables, plant-clusters, stable-tools, blacksmithing locations, and lounging areas that we could then spread throughout the world. During the entire development of this set I worked very closely with Level Designers Mitch Gladney and Kol Crosby who were an absolute delight to deal with as well as Derek Patterson for lighting.

 
Vors Revenge


This quest-line was created to replace our former tutorial level. It was acompanied with a pre-rendered cinematic introduction followed up with further ingame cutscenes. When the tutorial starts, all the early environments were put together entirely by me; both Level art and most of the general Level Design, exluding the tutorial specific parts.
It was made using a mix of existing props from the game and new ones for which I created proxies to have something to work with while environment art finalized them. Proxies included large seqoia inspired trees and their roots as separate pieces. Also structural debris for the Orokin ruins and background cards for trees. Several other pieces were reused from the Plains of Eidolon, Cetus, Venus and Grineer Forest. Several smaller environments towards the end were reused from the Grineer Forest set and enchanced to match both quality and story telling of the questline. This helped save a lot of time considering it was made with a very small team, which we could then use to prioritize the much larger first half of the quest.
 

 
New War - Driftercamp



Driftercamp was part of the New War update. I was responsible for applying a war-torn pass on the Plains of Eidolon which included craters, fallen trees, ship debris and swapping some existing structures for a broken version. I was as well responsible for all the Level Art in the Driftercamp, with the Level Design done by Andrew Seyko and final lighting from Jeremy Andress and Derek Patterson. This was a whole new environment meant to become the home of the Drifter character. Almost everything was reused from other sets such as Plains of Eidolon, Cetus, Venus, Grineer Forest and New User Experience. Having this not be part of a procedural system gave me more freedom and the oppertunity in creating a larger environment that suited the story we were trying to tell. The main challenge was that this level would be available directly from the menu. This required it to have minimal loading time and therefore keeping it very low on memory use.

 
Abyss of Dagath

Dagath Dojo was a brief project with a lot of thematic freedom. The room was meant to house a Warframe that at the time wasn't made yet outside of concept and there was no script either. The only requirements were to give it a horror/halloween thematic, stick to the Dojo metrics, needed a place for said Warframe character and as well a stable for horses of any kind.. It was up to me to decide how to explore this and where to go from there.

Being a big fan of medievil architecture and knowing horses would have some sort of role I chose to go with an crusader-inspired chapel. For the basic architecture I took most inspiration from existing chapels, churches and tombs from that era. Furthermore I took to movies such as Kingdom of Heaven, Interview with a Vampire, Sleepy Hollow as well as the classic monster movies from the 30's. Most of those may not have had a medieval thematic, but were a great inspiration for theatric and dramatic atmosphere. To build the basic structure I reused pieces from the old Grineer Settlement. The additional pieces that added detail and patterns on the floor are Orokin and so are the pieces I used for the chandeliers, which were originally used in entirely different ways and sizes.. The only new additions are the tomb itself, the banners, masks and the stable accessoiries. Final lighting was done by Jeremy Andress, whom I worked closely with in getting the desired outcome.

 
Railjack - Infested Orokin

This set was part of the Call of Tempestarii Railjack update we released. An area that was mostly there to allow people to explore the derelict towers in the area which at times could be linked to quest-lines surrounding the dedicated Railjack experience. As the set is fairly small and contained, the Level Art, lighting and effects placement were all entirely done by me. While I used some existing Orokin rooms as a start-off point, applying an infested pass on them often resulted in an entirely different level. This is because I wanted to make it a unique experience to see the architecture in this state. There are as well some levels, such as shown in the first and third image above, that were created entirely from scratch by me.

 
Grineer Forest - Remastered


I was on the forefront of Grineer Forest as well as leading the charge on the Remastered version of this set a couple years later. This included creating proxy pieces such as trees and rocks and a cave kit. Then I started creating beautiful corner prototypes that matched the art direction and set a visual example and guideline for the rest of the team. The remastered version included all new materials, sounds and lighting. From a Level Art standpoint I went through each and every level to look for improvements and consistency between all the individual levels. Think material usage on buildings, railings and cover, but also redoing entire sections if they could be done cleaner or had space for visual improvement and upgrades to better match the desired outcome.
There were also some technical advances made in between the original set and the remastered version such as the foliage system. This allowed me to not only learn and then apply this to the level, but as well teach my peers how to use them. This technology would later be improved upon further and applied to the Plains of Eidolon.

 
Orb Vallis 


For Orb Vallis I worked directly with Kol Crosby as the Level Designer and was co-responsible for Level Art in all the Caves with Mitch Gladney. Outside of the caves I also did two large craters that can be found on the surface.
To quickly and efficiently build Level Art for all these caves with just the two of us, I designed a cave-kit that could comfortably follow all the Level Design needs without too much kit-bashing. This could then be dressed up with a more detailed pass to get interesting and unique compositions. This kit included pieces such as straight, corner, 3-way, fourway, entrance and cap which could all comfortably be used upright, upside down, facing each other in a mirrored way and combined with terrain to give us the most versatile results. This kit would later be reused for New User Experience among other areas.

 
Railjack Pluto Proxima
I've worked on Railjack since day 1 and have done a whole variety of themes and missions.
The last update came with 'Call of the tempestarii', which included two new planet regions; Neptune and Pluto.
What Level Artists such as myself generally do here is create clusters of themed compositions that will then get generated along a Spline which the Railjack will follow to sucesfully complete their mission. Pluto was special in its own way because instead of just having a planet in the background, we added a smaller one that you will go straight through instead. This was done by adding a story that the Corpus was mining the planet like an apple, causing it to have large chunk of it removed with lots of floating debris around it. Said debris are the compositions I put together using the sculpted work of the talented Arif Pribadi. He and I also worked closely together on testing the planet shape to get the best results for both gameplay and visual impression.
 
Railjack Neptune Proxima - Corpus Ice Station


 

Before and after comparisons

The images below are acompanied by a screenshot of the mockup showing how I often received the original Level Design.
The level designers focus on the gameplay path and pacing of the level. I will then visualize this to the desired art direction of the set by using set pieces created by the Environment Art team.