👋 Hey! I'm Steve Z
I'm a technically-minded, real-time artist who experiments with rendering, bends vectors, & pushes parameters to make art unique to the videogames medium.
Most at-home when blending mathematics, sculpture, and sheer creative effort.
Location: Bellevue, Washington
steve.a.zapata@gmail.com
SteveZapata.com
LinkedIn
Proficiencies
Shaders | Shaderlab/Cg/GLSL, Node Editors for Unity & Unreal
3D Graphics Math | Linear algebra, Trigonometry
3D Modeling & Sculpting | Blender, Zbrush
Scripting | C# (4 yrs), C++ & Blueprint (2 yrs)
Prototyping & Look Development
Graphics Optimization | Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, Mobile
Unity & Unreal 5
Documentation | Prototype learnings,
Asset use, Asset/art pipeline, etc.
Experience
Sr. Rendering Tech Artist, R&D Central | Riot Games | 3 yrs
Stylized Rendering & Look-dev support for multiple game-teams and R&D projects.
Supported Project L’s Character Shading & Animated Lighting System for the EVO 2023 debut.Tech Artist | Niantic, Inc | 3 yrs
Pokemon Go & AR Prototyping.Guest 3D & Tech Artist | Aggro Crab Games
Supported early Look-dev & Vertical-slice development for Another Crab’s Treasure | Released 2024.
Made the Final Boss & Arena graphics for Going Under | Released, 2020.3D Lead, Tech Artist, Co-Founder | PolyKnight Games, LLC | 5 yrs
Developed, Ported, & Released: InnerSpace.3D Character Artist, R&D | Brain Performance Institute, Virtual Reality Lab | 2 yrs
Interned, then hired as part-time. Employed here while completing my degree.
Achievements
2023 | Presenter at Riot’s annual Creative Town Hall | “Shading Pixels instead of Paper”
2022 | 14 Game Jams to date
2021 | 1st Place Award & Prize | Game Jolt’s Party Jam | Swatchbucklers
2019 | Best UX Award | Global Game Jam x Seattle Indies x Pacific Science Center
2018 | Independently developed first commercial title InnerSpace | Simultaneous release across: Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC, Mac, Linux
2017 | IndieCade Selection | InnerSpace featured
2015 | B.A. in Arts and Technology | The University of Texas at Dallas
2014-18 | Work featured in digital & physical publications | Edge Magazine #278, Eurogamer, IGN, Kotaku, Playstation Blog, PC Gamer, Xbox Wire, Dallas Morning News, more...
2014 | Helped manage a successfully funded Kickstarter campaign | Campaign page
Don't forget to check out my EXPERIMENTS page for all kinds of bite-sized shader eye-candy 🍰
And thank you for checking out my artwork!
