Environment art, PlayStation VR exclusive

Farpoint was one of the first PlayStation VR titles. On a team of 15, I worked on 5 of the game’s 8 single-player levels and fully owned several of them. VR, Unreal Engine 4, and the studio’s pipeline were all new to us at the same time.

I helped define the visual direction for the alien landscapes. VR brought constraints we hadn’t dealt with before: strict framerates, human-scale geometry, and tight rendering budgets.

A lot of the work was visual storytelling and composition. I’d take designer blockouts and work out how to tell a story in those spaces, using concept art where we had it and my own ideas where we didn’t.

I built the environment setups, shaders, and assets for my levels, and worked with the design, lighting, VFX, and outsource teams. I also spent a lot of time on shader and performance optimization to keep the levels detailed within the frame budget.

VFX: Alex Brown Original concepts for Pilgrim, Shuttle, and Hab: Andre Balmet