Wilds Benchmark - This gameplay area served as a little benchmark for where the rest of the Wilds' art pass could go. Brought together our custom assets, Star Wars Fortnite assets and Brian Beppu's terrain painting work to form a cohesive benchmark.
Wilds Landing Zone Theming - Worked with our AD Ken, Design VP David Adam and my lead Martin Teichmann to come up with unique theming for each landing zone - this was an Imperial one.
Wilds Landing Zone Theming - Worked with our AD Ken Morse, Design VP David Adams and my lead Martin Teichmann to come up with unique theming for each landing zone - this was a vibrant bloom mushroom one.
Wilds Landing Zone Theming - Worked with our AD Ken Morse, Design VP David Adams and my lead Martin Teichmann to come up with unique theming for each landing zone - this was a vibrant bloom mushroom one.
Wilds Landing Zone Theming - Worked with our AD Ken Morse, Design VP David Adams and my lead Martin Teichmann to come up with unique theming for each landing zone - this was a space-pirate themed one.
Ancient Grove POI - Arted up the largest POI in the map (world building w/our custom assets + Star Wars Kit assets, god ray lighting, terrain painting/sculpting, layout changes to support giant root canopy, optimization/bug fix/polish, etc.
Ancient Grove POI - Arted up the largest POI in the map (world building w/our custom assets + Star Wars Kit assets, god ray lighting, terrain painting/sculpting, layout changes to support giant root canopy, optimization/bug fix/polish, etc.
Ancient Grove POI - Arted up the largest POI in the map (world building w/our custom assets + Star Wars Kit assets, god ray lighting, terrain painting/sculpting, layout changes to support giant root canopy, optimization/bug fix/polish, etc.
Ancient Grove POI - Arted up the largest POI in the map (world building w/our custom assets + Star Wars Kit assets, god ray lighting, terrain painting/sculpting, layout changes to support giant root canopy, optimization/bug fix/polish, etc.
Abandoned Base POI - Arted up the largest interior space in the map (all lighting throughout, world building w/custom assets + Star Wars Kit assets, optimization/bug fix/polish, etc.)
Abandoned Base POI - Arted up the largest interior space in the map (all lighting throughout, world building w/custom assets + Star Wars Kit assets, optimization/bug fix/polish, etc.)
Abandoned Base POI - Arted up the largest interior space in the map (all lighting throughout, world building w/custom assets + Star Wars Kit assets, optimization/bug fix/polish, etc.)
Abandoned Base POI - Arted up the largest interior space in the map (all lighting throughout, world building w/custom assets + Star Wars Kit assets, optimization/bug fix/polish, etc.)
Abandoned Base POI - Arted up the largest interior space in the map (all lighting throughout, world building w/custom assets + Star Wars Kit assets, optimization/bug fix/polish, etc.)
Abandoned Base POI - Arted up the largest interior space in the map (all lighting throughout, world building w/custom assets + Star Wars Kit assets, optimization/bug fix/polish, etc.)
Abandoned Base POI - Arted up the largest interior space in the map (all lighting throughout, world building w/custom assets + Star Wars Kit assets, optimization/bug fix/polish, etc.)
Imperial Research Exterior POI - Terrain Art Pass: Terrain Painting/Sculpting, world building w/custom assets + Star Wars Kit Assets, optimization/bug fixes/polish, etc. (Hard-Surface exterior under cliff by Brian Beppu)
Imperial Research Exterior POI - Terrain Art Pass: Terrain Painting/Sculpting, world building w/custom assets + Star Wars Kit Assets, optimization/bug fixes/polish, etc. (Hard-Surface exterior under cliff by Brian Beppu)
Shield Generator Exterior POI - Terrain Art Pass: Terrain Painting/Sculpting, world building w/custom assets + Star Wars Kit Assets, optimization/bug fixes/polish, etc. (Initial Blockout/1st Pass Art by Martin Teichmann)
Shield Generator Exterior POI - Arted up exterior of POI: Hard-Surface Floor art pass, world building w/custom assets + Star Wars Kit Assets, optimization/bug fixes/polish, etc. (Initial Blockout/1st Pass Art by Martin Teichmann)
Open World Art Pass - Interstitial areas between POIs I did a final pass throughout the map - terrain painting/sculpting, world building w/custom assets + Star Wars Kit, bug fixes/optimization/polish, etc. (initial 1st pass art by Martin Teichmann)
Open World Art Pass - Interstitial areas between POIs I did a final pass throughout the map - terrain painting/sculpting, world building w/custom assets + Star Wars Kit, bug fixes/optimization/polish, etc. (initial 1st pass art by Martin Teichmann)
Open World Art Pass - Interstitial areas between POIs I did a final pass throughout the map - terrain painting/sculpting, world building w/custom assets + Star Wars Kit, bug fixes/optimization/polish, etc. (initial 1st pass art by Martin Teichmann)
Open World Art Pass - Interstitial areas between POIs I did a final pass throughout the map - terrain painting/sculpting, world building w/custom assets + Star Wars Kit, bug fixes/optimization/polish, etc. (initial 1st pass art by Martin Teichmann)
Open World Art Pass - Interstitial areas between POIs I did a final pass throughout the map - terrain painting/sculpting, world building w/custom assets + Star Wars Kit, bug fixes/optimization/polish, etc. (initial 1st pass art by Martin Teichmann)
Open World Art Pass - Interstitial areas between POIs I did a final pass throughout the map - terrain painting/sculpting, world building w/custom assets + Star Wars Kit, bug fixes/optimization/polish, etc. (initial 1st pass art by Martin Teichmann)
Custom Foliage Asset Renders - All the custom foliage I did final modeling and textures for, set up wind vertex color for, etc. (from the great blockout/1st pass textures Molly Warner made)
Roots Kit Asset Renders - Roots kit pieces used in map. Given their size, used a tiling material and leveraged its heightmap to deform base geo. Forms cohesive base for the whole foliage species. (initial blockout/1st pass textures by Molly Warner)
Roots Kit Material Render - All roots and tree barks used the same material efficiently and to use them cohesively together as a kit. Used heightmap to deform base geo and sell twisty nature. (initial 1st pass textures by Molly Warner, which I finalized)
Smugglers Gambit Gameplay Trailer
Smugglers Gambit/Smugglers Run Reveal Trailer
I owned the environment art for a large portion of the main gameplay space of Smugglers Gambit's Wilds, a fairly large open-world map by UEFN standards. I owned and finalized all our custom foliage, finalized our foliage Master Material with key components like SSS and double-sided normals for fluffiness, created a little benchmark area for the Wilds that helped guide the art pass for the rest of the map, owned the Abandoned Base POI, owned the Ancient Grove POI, owned the Shield Generator Exterior POI and arted up any interstitial areas between POIs. For a good chunk of these, I took these spaces from blockout/1st pass art all the way to final quality with bug fixes/polish/optimization. My Lead Environment Artist, Martin Teichmann, did a great job initially blocking out and doing a 1st pass a lot of the open-world space along with our Lead Level Designer, Jed Bellini. And it was then fun to take ownership of those various areas and bring them to final art quality and performance. It was great working off of Molly Warner's fantastic blockout and 1st pass texture for the custom foliage kit as well. Big props to Molly and Martin who held down the fort on the environment art side for over half the development before us new artists (Brian, Daphne, myself) joined the team in April/May 2026 to help finalize and bring things home together!
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Although I had extensive UE4/UE5 experience in the past, it was definitely a good challenge to jump in during the middle of development to figure out the ins and outs and unique restrictions of UEFN; and ship all this within 3.5 months of joining the team! We needed to make the game work across PC, current-gen consoles, last-gen consoles, Switch and Mobile. It was definitely a big learning experience and fun challenge to get our art running and performing across all that!
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Given the breadth of work across the whole map - please pay attention to image descriptions for more detailed work callouts, credits and breakdowns, as it varied from different areas. Any foliage not shown in the assets renders is either from the Star Wars kit, or re-used from other Star Wars games (e.g. some ground foliage from Jedi: Survivor that formed our wildflower kit). Big thanks and shoutout to the rest of the Disney Games and Digital Entertainment team that made Smugglers Gambit a reality in record time! These are some of the people I've worked closest with on the Environment Art end of things though:
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Art Director:
Ken Morse
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Lead Environment Artist:
https://www.artstation.com/mayday
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Environment Artists:
https://www.artstation.com/brianbeppu
https://www.artstation.com/mollywarner
https://www.artstation.com/invader-roxas
https://www.artstation.com/jobyek
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Environment Concept Artists:
https://www.artstation.com/walkingjayart
https://www.artstation.com/kellyperry
https://www.artstation.com/jenmeiart
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Level Designers:
Jed Bellini
Sydney Wolfram
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FX Artist:
https://www.artstation.com/justinwoodard
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Lead Character Artist & Character/Vehicle Outsource Management:
https://www.artstation.com/hcldesignworks