Curriculum Blogae

2009-08-06T17:17:00.004-04:00

Curriculum Vitae - Andrew D. Britton

Overview

Shader Writer and Pipeline developer for Real-Time Entertainment Technology Provider
Online Educator since 2009
Certified Instructor of Maya from 2004 - 2010
Director of 10-minute Educational Animation for Children's Hospital of Boston
Over 5700 Hours as In-Class Instructor
Former Texture Artist and Environmental Modeler for EA Sport
Former 3D Animation Instructor for Boston University and The Digital Animation and Visual Effects School
Author of Advanced Photoshop Texturing: Photoshop Tutorial DVD, available on Amazon.com
B.F.A. in Painting from University of Illinois
M.S. from Purdue University, focusing on Ray-Trace Rendering Systems on the GPU

Industry Experience

June 2010 - Present - Lead Look Developer
Lightcraft Technology LLC
Responsibilities include technical, artistic and soft skill requirements. Technical duties involve writing software, real-time shaders and pipeline tools for assisting artists to integrate their content into our product. Artistic duties include creating in-house demo content and look-dev for artistically specific shader needs. Soft skills requirements combine client support, running a beta-tester program, developing curriculum for on-site training and teaching technical courses at Universal Studios Virtual Stage. Tools used to create pipelines and software include: MEL, Python, QT, CGFX, C++, Maya, Maya C++ API, FBX.
Lightcraft Technology is a technology provider for film and television production companies allowing companies to camera track, key, color correct and composite live action and CG elements in real time.

September 2011 – Present – Director of Education and Co-Owner
Future Arts School of Entertainment Media
Responsible for creating educational vision for online school and enacting the goals and procedures of a new school. Developing low cost education focusing on entertainment media arts.

November 2009 – September 2011 – 3D Course Director
Institute of Digital Media Arts (IDMA)
Responsible for curriculum development, staffing recommendations and course instruction.

March – May 2008 – ZBrush Instructor
Hasbro Inc., Great Eastern Technologies
On behalf of Great Eastern Technologies, taught ZBrush Modeling and Texturing to the D+D team at Hasbro. The classes were aimed at enhancing the rapid prototyping process for toy creation. ZBrush is used to create hi-density, detailed, models that can be printed in 3D. Hasbro works with ZBrush to provide an intuitive, digital solution for their artists in the designing of toys. Taught introduction to ZBrush, and also specific lectures geared towards modeling and texturing.

April 2006 – Oct 2011 – Animation Director
Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
Responsible for artistic design and overall project management for educational animation, The Stormy Night: A Zak and Dakota Adventure (working title). Lead 35 students and instructors to produce art in a real-world and educational application. The animation will be used to teach children about life with cancer. It will play on the hospital television network and will be available in the family services library and in schools as an instructional aid.

December 2006 – May 2010 – Consultant
Lightcraft (Cinital LLC), Pasadena, CA
Creates 3D content; consults on art import/export pipeline solutions. Lightcraft is a young company providing a 3D Virtual Studio solution for television and film studios. The Previzion product integrates live footage recording, compositing, camera tracking, 3D rendering, and color grading in a real-time environment with HD uncompressed data. Clients for Lightcraft include Stargate Digital Studios and Intel.

April 2007 – June 2007 – Reviewer/Consultant
Discovery Learning Center, Purdue University,
West Lafayette, Indiana
Consulted with Associate Provost on evaluation criteria for the Games-To-Teach Competition of the Discovery Learning Center. Reviewed faculty-designed proposals for interactive, electronic games to replace any existing Purdue course. The reward for a successful proposal was $150,000.

February 2006 – Consultant
Big Machine Studios, Phoenix, Arizona
Recruited by Big Machine Studios to generate a 10-second artistic, rendered visualization of a new product by Spalding Inc., the Never Flat™ basketball. Familiarized project lead with Maya software, rigged rendered particle FX for collisions, animated particle collisions, and rigged and animated hundreds of objects with dynamic solvers. The footage was integrated into a 30-second televised commercial.

December 2005 – January 2006 – Artistic Director, 30 sec. Commercial
Center for Digital Imaging Arts at Boston University,
Waltham, Massachusetts
Conceptualized and designed 30-second televised commercial, “The Chase,” which featured a student production staff and industry-experienced directors. Defined the look and concept for the commercial, scouted locations, assisted with green-screen filming, and directed 3D content.

August 2000 – October 2003 – Environmental Modeler and Texture Artist
Electronic Arts (EA Sports – Tiburon), Orlando, Florida
Successfully met market demand and continued product excellence for market leader in the sports video game industry. Created and/or managed more than 250,000 files and 3,000 directories, uniforms for over 160 NCAA football teams, NASCAR racetrack models and textures, car textures, and an unlockable race course. Trained and mentored new hires on multiple art teams, introduced more efficient texture tools and methods, generated content automation processes, and worked closely with programming staff to implement new features. Titles such as NCAA Football and Madden Football commanded over 90% market shares.

Teaching Experience

November 2009 – Present – Online Educator
Future Arts / IDMA
Through both online schools, responsibilities include online deployment educational materials for a VFX curriculum. Created a series of workshops and online training videos.

January 2011 – Present – Staff Trainer
Lightcraft Technology LLC
Teaching clients and Los Angeles area VFX professionals new topics relating to newly developed modeling and shader pipelines, some of which are researched in house. Course material also covers all topics related to real-time rendering using Lightcraft's Previzion tools. Courses are taught at Universal Virtual Studio 1, in Studio City.

October 2008 – May 2010 – 3D Animation Graduate Student Instructor
Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
Course instructor for CGT 241: Introduction to 3D Animation. Restructured course syllabus, writing new lectures, updating assignments. Updated course materials for re-accreditation review. Course focuses on a strong introduction to 3D animation principles and practices. Topics of lecture include: box-modeling, skinning & rigging, rendering & lighting, and character modeling techniques.

June 2005 – May 2008 – 3D Animation Instructor
Center for Digital Imaging Arts at Boston University, Waltham, Massachusetts
Teaches intensive 3-month Game Art and 9-month 3D Digital Animation courses, 40 hours per week. Created Game Art course and oversaw curriculum development. Teaches complete 3D Digital Animation course: pre-production, modeling, texturing, rigging, animation, lighting, rendering, and post-production. Directed community service projects through the school’s Practicum program. Presented at various Alias user events hosted by the school. Graduates found employment at Pixar, Blue Fang Games, and Turbine Games.

February 2004 – June 2005 – Graduate Maya Instructor
Digital Animation and Visual Effects School, Orlando, Florida
Taught trained LightWave users, and graduates of the school, to easily transition to Maya. Created and taught course curriculum and certified students in Alias’s Maya. Created a new game art curriculum. Graduates found employment at Digital Domain, Electronic Arts, Radical 3D, and Wet Cement.

August 2008 – December 2008 – Teaching Assistant , Purdue University
Teaching assistant for CGT 211: Raster Imaging and Computer Graphics. Responsible for critiques and grades of weekly assignments and homework, updating curriculum for lab sections and presenting demonstrations. Course software includes Photoshop CS3, After Effects, ZBrush and Maya.

September 1999 – May 2000 – Teaching Assistant
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Critiqued and graded student projects. Gave presentation on full motion compositing and creation using Alias/Wavefront Composer. Tutored students in Alias/Wavefront Composer 4.5 – 5.0, Alias/Wavefront Maya 2.0 – 2.5, Unix (Irix), Telnet, FTP, and Photoshop 3.0 for Unix.

Education

Purdue University
August 2008 – May 2010 Master of Science in Computer Graphics Technology Candidate,
Thesis: Full CUDA Implementation of GPGPU Recursive Ray-Tracing
Focus on Rendering Systems in C++ and NVidia's CUDA

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
September 1995 – May 2000 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Painting

Professional Qualifications and Associations

2004 – 2010 Autodesk Certified Instructor of Maya
Member Epsilon Pi Tau - International Honor Society for Technolgy

Credits

The Stormy Night: A Zak and Dakota Adventure
Director
In Hospital Educational Animation DVD
Children's Hospital of Boston & Center for Digital Imaging Arts at Boston University

Never Flat
FX Rigging and Animation
30 sec. Television Commercial
Big Machine Studios & Spalding Sports

Advanced Photoshop Texturing
Author / DVD
9.5 Hours Photoshop Training
KURV Studios LLC

NASCAR Thunder (2002, 2003, 2004)
Environmental Modeler and Additional Texture Art
PS2 | GameCube | XBox
EA Sports - Tiburon

NCAA College Football (2002, 2003)
Texture Artist
PS2 | GameCube | XBox
EA Sports - Tiburon

Madden Football (2002)
Additional Texture Artist
PS2 | GameCube | XBox
EA Sport - Tiburon

Publications

Advanced Photoshop Texturing DVD
February 2005 KURV Studios LLC
ASIN: B00095M4Q4
Total running time: 540 minutes

“To Hell and Back”
August 2007 Animation Magazine
published illustration

June 2005 – July 2005 Highend3D
www.highend3D.com iMage1.1 — Maya/Photoshop Interfacing Tool
CAT Tools 1.0 — Poly Component Alignment Tool
makeClothTransformConstraint 0.5 — Cloth Constraint Automation too

Introduction to Texture Automation: A Collection of Lessons for GX, DOS, and BATCH Scripting
May 2003 Electronic Arts, World Wide Tools Database

Presentations

Advanced Texture Network Presentation
December 3, 2005
Alias 3December Event, Waltham, Massachusetts

iMage 1.0
July 14, 2005
Alias User Group Meeting, Waltham, Massachusetts

Shows and Exhibitions

6th Annual Animation Magazine Pitch Party
July 2007
www.AnimationMagazine.net

Altered Light: Alternative Photographic Processes
February 2003 Photographic Traditions of Maine
Portland, Maine

Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition
May 2000 Bachelor of
Urbana, Illinois

Technical Skills

Maya, Photoshop, After Effects, ZBrush, C++, Fusion, MEL Scripting, Art Rage, OpenGL, CUDA, Unreal Editor

Volunteer

May 2006 – SkillsUSA Judge, Boston, Massachusetts
Co-designed and judged vocational high school competition in 3D Animation. This was the Massachusetts state competition level for the SkillsUSA organization.

Andrew Britton: Curriculum Vitae

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