CHRISTIAN HODGES

Game Developer

CHRISTIAN HODGES

Game Developer

I have been developing games and working in peripheral fields since 2012. Starting with Unity Game Engine and moving to Unreal Engine in 2018, I've been developing and delivering projects with game engines for over a decade.

I relish collaborative workplaces that push all team members to grow, but have also often been requried to develop and deliver as a solo developer; this has given me strong adaptability and an ability to learn quickly on the job. I have battle tested skills in project management, programming and art.

But more than all the skills, I honestly love games and game tech, and it's this passion that drives me to deliver high quality products to my clients and employers.

From 2021-present I have worked for SMEC as a Digital Platforms Developer. Although a generic title, I was employed to enable a new visualisaiton capability in the business; gamification was the keyword at the center of this endeavour. Using Unreal Engine as my primary tool, I was tasked with creating a series of proof-of-concept pieces showcasing the usage of real-time visualization for linear infrastructure. These POCs lead to commercial work where I delivered numerous projects for both internal and external clients. These projects involved creating visualizations for design iterations, stakeholder engagement, and public consultation. Deliverables ranged anywhere from still renders to through to real-time immersive visualisations and tools both on PC and in Virtual Reality.

Interestingly I wouldn't call myself an artist, but this role, at its core, is a Visualisation Artist. How I solved many of the challenges I faced however was through bespoke tooling and procedural workflows. So although artistic outputs, my solutions have been more aligned with technical art, gameplay programming, tools development and environment art.

Renders

Bearers is a 3rd-person fantasy action RPG where strategic character building and Souls-inspired combat challenge you to master every decision.

This project has been a labour of love for some years now. Worked on between work, life and family, it is inspired by the games that I hold dear to my heart.
Website Linktree

In late 2019 I started work with ConceptV, an Architectural Visualisation startup. I learned a great deal during my time at ConceptV, from creating realistic renders from game engines, to project management, human resource management with hiring and managing contracts, and into tool development, in which I focused on largely in the later part of my tenure with ConceptV, where I created UE4 tools to automate and greatly improve the efficiency of tasks undertaken by level designers.

During 2019 I was primarily focused on teaching in the Bachelor of Design (Game Design) at the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC).
Below is a video I put together to for my first year course in order to demonstrate the idea of inheritance for polymorphism.

During 2019 I also sought development work, which lead me to work extensively in visualisation development for USC's CAVE 2.0 facility.

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Moreton Bay Precinct Visualisation

USC CAVE 2.0 Project

Ion Channels for Action Potentials - Biomedical Science Visualisation

USC CAVE 2.0 Project

In 2018 I worked with USC's Engage Lab to take a game prototype from idea to stage capable of publishing.

Road Hero

USC Engage Lab - Game Development Project

I ran all of my freelancing work through my company Hodges Studios Pty Ltd. You can see my old company showreel below which includes footage of many of my freelancing projects.

Freelancing afforded me countless learning opportunities, both in business, software development and game development. Extremely tight budgets and large briefs taught me how to work efficiently, to protect my data and what to deliver to reach client goals.

Eyes on Baseball is perhaps the largest project I worked on during my freelancing tenure.

This project saw me working as part of an international team on the development of a baseball visualisation project. The project had an existing Unity codebase that I was hired as a subcontractor of a local game developer on the Sunshine Coast.

I worked on this project consistently for approximately 6 months, during which time I was primarily focused on delivering animation code to fit in the poorly structured existing codebase.

A-MAZE-ING RUNNER is the most AMAZING endless (infinite) runner you will ever play!

Step aside those who surf in SUBWAYS or run through TEMPLES! For this is a true test of skill.

You will not only need QUICK REFLEXES, but also QUICK WITS.

The MAZE gets THICKER and HARDER the longer you play.

Friends and foes will try to STOP YOU with SABOTAGES! Hone your skills and rise above their challenges!

So oil your thumbs, and bring your thinking cap: it's going to be one AMAZING CONTEST!

Making A-Maze-Ing Runner

Where it started

A-Maze-Ing Runner was an idea that began percolating not long before I graduated from University. Stemming from the desire to bring greater depth to the endless runner genre of video games; I established that the genre was characterised by a focus on twitch gameplay, so I began to think of ways to incorporate cognitive thought into a genre seemingly characterised by a lack of thinking.

As I began to think of games built around cognitive thought, I arrived at the age-old style of play seen in mazes, and it was not long after that A-Maze-Ing Runner’s gameplay began coming together in my head.

My Role

I designed, developed, published and am currently marketing A-Maze-Ing Runner myself. It has been an incredible learning process to see the development of a game from a simple design intent to a fully realised product and taking on every along the way. By doing so I have encountered a huge number of issues that every game developer is likely to come across in their careers and the resulting lessons have made the entire process worth-while.

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All Code

Having designed and developed all of the code for the game has afforded me the opportunity to hone my programming skills to a high level and has exposed me to programming numerous different aspects of video games. Some examples of systems I designed and developed include:

  • Procedural level generation through randomised prefab selection and generation, which is optimised through mesh combining and simplification
  • Input programming including multiple input methods for touch-screen devices
  • All in-game actions, including character movement, enemy movement, all score mechanics, visual effects programming, difficulty scaling and countless removed mechanics
  • My own leaderboard, statistics and sabotage systems which utilise PHP, SQL and database manipulation and interpret retrieved data in-game
  • All user interface (UI) programming, along with monetisation programming, UI effects, animations and external system manipulation and interpretation
  • All 3rd party plugin integration and maintenance

All Assembly and Editor Useage

I assembled the entire game myself using Unity. By doing so, and having been through numerous iterations of the game has left me with strong skills in using many of Unity’s features. Some of these include:

  • Mecanim state machine development, script linking, avatar and muscle definitions for different characters
  • Unity UI development, sprite sheet to animations, built-in event system script linking, along with self-made visual effects and functions
  • Project management, maintenance and scene development and project building for a multiplatform game (including use of platform specific deployment software such as XCode)
  • Scripting, art integration and assembly of all in-game actions has taught me some valuable lessons and best practices for object design and development
  • Sourcing, integration and maintenance for 3rd party plugins

Lots of Art

I created all of the 2D art assets for the game, along with all environment art and animation. Also a whole pile of extra UI experimentation assets.

  • All UI Art developed with the Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop and Illustrator), including multiple button states for all buttons, sliders and all other UI elements
  • All icons designed and developed for multiple 2D visual styles
  • All UI and texture animations developed using sprite sheets, from a process of SWF from Adobe Flash and exported to sprite sheet using 3rd party plugin
  • All environment 3D art, texturing and animation

Management / PR / QA

The process of developing the game and getting it to a stage that I was happy with was a huge challenge, and has taught me countless lessons in terms of project management and marketing processes. Here are a few other tasks I have completed and lessons learned:

  • All promotional and marketing material including social media banners, gameplay screenshots, websites, trailers and gameplay capture, game blurbs, gameplay explanations etc.
  • Correspondence with platform marketplace review teams regarding publishing and meeting criteria
  • Testing plan, distribution and feedback collection along with bug-fixing prioritisation, build pushing and testing team correspondence

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2D Art and Design Samples

Programming Sample

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The following code is used to create, recycle, position and orient the objects seen in the background of A-Maze-Ing Runner. It uses the camera's frustum and a y-value range to ensure the objects are always in the background of the scene during gameplay. It is a visual effect class used to add depth and life to the screen-space of A-Maze-Ing Runner.

The code highlights my use of attributes and public classes for easy manipulation from editor, along with commenting and events which I find are imperative for the reusability and successful collaboration with programming.

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Game Website

R/E/M/ is a narrative-driven, 2.5D, side-scrolling Beat ‘em Up game, set in a dream-state where the player assumes the role of person caught in an altered state of reality. The player moves through a world torn asunder, with elements seemingly realistic but abstracted from our usual understanding.

The game’s combat scenarios are reminiscent of the Hack ‘n’ Slash genre, with fast paced, fist fighting combat that is deepened by a grab and throw combat mechanic which allows the play to grab enemies and use them as projectiles. These mechanics along with a fluid movement system featuring double jumping and dashing, merge together to create a game of intense combat sequences interspersed with platforming puzzles, allowing the exploration of a story through the subconscious.

Making R/E/M/

Where it started

R/E/M/ was my final year game project during my Bachelor of Games and Interactive Entertainment. The project was a year-long trial by fire for myself and 7 peers. It began with each participant presenting a game idea to the team, followed by discussions and the eventual democratic decision on which idea to go for.

I had been toying with an idea to bring and accessible Beat ‘em Up experience to mobile devices, with a new take on the combat experience which focused largely on aerial combat built around correctly timing attacks and utilising combat to create interesting platforming sequences.

The team enjoyed the notion and it was not long before our naivety escalated the scope of the game to a console targeted, 2.5D, sidescrolling Beat ‘em Up with a rich narrative and gameplay deepened by a grab and throw system.

My Role

We all started the project with little experience in game development, having done some small projects prior, and I having only done some minor prototyping in my spare time.

I was majoring in Software Engineering and had become quite proficient with programming in a general sense, so I took it on myself to dive head-first into the game and engine to build the character’s movement and combat mechanics.

After 6-months I was a proficient Unity programmer having built numerous, complex mechanics for the game including character movement, combat, enemy combat, health mechanics, camera mechanics and visual effects. At this point I was tasked with being the game’s producer in order to distribute tasks depending on member’s skillsets.

I continued to pickup whatever task needed completion, and by the end of the project I had also developed decent skills in 3D art and animation with Blender by creating the main character model, melee enemy model, along with their accompanying rigs and animations. I also took on the task of fixing the ranged enemy to be thematically correct and ensuring the animations imported correctly, along with the second level’s environment assets and textures, the final boss’s retopolgy, sculpting, normal maps, rig and texturing.

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Complex Code and Editor Usage

Having designed and developed all of the code for the game has afforded me the opportunity to hone my programming skills to a high level and has exposed me to programming numerous different aspects of video games. Some examples of systems I designed and developed include:

  • Player movement and melee combat, including the necessary in-editor setup of the character, animations, state machine, avatar and muscles definitions and triggers
  • Grab and throw system design, in-editor setup of ragdoll system, animator to ragdoll system setup, resulting damage, along with special meter and area of effect attack
  • Enemy animation integration, state machine setup, avatar and muscle definitions
  • Enemy visual effect setup and programming for death animation
  • Boss combat design and programming which utilised grab and throw mechanics, followed by a state shift allowing melee damage

Art Development and Correction

We lacked any dedicated artists at the start of the project, and considering I had some prior experience, I took on as much art development as time allowed. By doing so I learned to use Blender for a full art asset development cycle (along with its more frustrating parts). Later in the project we used a collaborative process of design and development for 3D assets.

  • Main character concept art, initial model, rigging, texturing and animating
  • Second main character remodel, rigging, weighting, sculpting, texturing and normal map baking
  • Melee enemy concept art, model, rigging, animation, sculpting, texturing and normal map baking
  • Boss enemy remodel, sculpting, rigging, texturing and normal map baking
  • Hospital level environment concept art, modelling and texturing

Management

I took on the role of being producer when the team began to struggle with completing tasks in certain areas of expertise. As a result, we decided to adopt a more structured resource allocation process. Some of the tasks I performed as producer included:

  • Ensuring we successfully reached deadlines through task management, prioritisation and resource allocation
  • Performance tracking through task burndown charts
  • Scheduling and mediating biweekly team meetings
  • Testing plan, distribution and feedback collection along with bug-fixing prioritisation, build pushing and testing team correspondence
  • Facilitating communication and cooperation between members of varying disciplines, skill levels and ESL members

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Art Samples

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Play R/E/M!

Indie DB Page
REM Download

The Bare Basics is the cookbook with a cheeky twist! Aimed at bringing nutritious, delicious and easy recipes to the masses in a particularly digestible manner; The Bare Basics brings attractive men and food together to create a cookbook filled with recipes, tips and plenty of reasons to keep using it!

I did the graphic design and illustrations for every page of this 128p cookbook. As each page was unique it highlights my graphic design skills.

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My Role

The Bare Basics is a cookbook, written and published by Kelly Daly. Her graphic designer dropped out of the project at an imperative part of the development process. As the time ran short she was unable to find someone else to take over on a commission basis, so I agreed to take over.

The client left a great deal of the design decisions up to me, and wanted a unique style that was exciting throughout the book. We opted for a realistic, texture style that gave the book a real-world feel, was different on each page, but consistent in its overarching visual style.

All Graphic Design and Illustration

I learned to use Adobe Illustrator and InDesign through the graphic design process for the 128p cookbook, as I had only had minor exposure to design for print during my Architectural design study. Some of the notable achievements and lessons I learned include:

  • Graphic design of 128 different pages, including image arrangement, vector illustrations, typography and image processing
  • Liaison between client and photographer terms of file formatting and sizing for quality and print
  • Communication facilitation between client and publishing company
  • Designing for print, including file formatting, project setup, bleeds, runoffs and covers

Graphic Design Samples

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Read more about The Bare Basics

Visit Website
TBB

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The Modular Flood Levy Retaining Wall System Pitch Animation is a 13 minute long 3D animation detailing the design, function and construction process of an innovative design for flood levy systems. The animation was used to facilitate presentations of the design to councils, investors and other professionals in a manner that gave context to the positive elements of the design and would most importantly demonstrate its revolutionary construction method.

Below is a sped up, shortened and compressed version of the original animation. As the design and this animation remain the intellectual property of the client, the following video is a sample of my work on the project.

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My Role

I was project manager and all round utility member for this project. I approached the project wanting to make it as streamlined as possible for my team and the client.

We began with a project outline, schedule and quote, with specified milestones.

The project began with an iterative storyboarding process, which after approval moved into 3D model development. When the models were ready we then moved into our animation phase.

As there was a great deal of annotation required in the short-film, I deemed it necessary to develop a visual style that would aid in creating flow, and help deliver information in a consistent manner.

I established a visual style that was thematically befitting of a prototype, and allowed us to translate a set style throughout all of the visual material.

We were in constant collaboration with the client to ensure all models and visual representations were appropriate and accurate.

All Graphic Design

We used 3dsMax for this project, in which we modelled, animated, textured and rendered all of our scenes in separate sequences. We thus assembled, annotated and did post-processing in Adobe After Effects. Some of my achievements and lessons include:

  • 3D animation of complex crane rig, digging animation and showing development processes including vehicle animation, construction work placeholder animation all to client specification
  • 3D animation for design communication, including cross sectioning, assembly, and building processes
  • Annotating and animation in Adobe After Effects, which was both befitting of a visual style and met client specification
  • Correspondence with, providing new material to and adapting to feedback from the client

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The Bundaberg Sugar Rail Bridge Animation was a 20 minute 3D animation used to facilitate the presentation of the proposed bridge design to councils, investors and other professionals. Its main function was to provide context as to where the bridge was located, how it’s lifting mechanism worked, to outline a few key elements of the bridge’s design and to provide an interesting visual representation of the design to accompany presentations.

Below is a sped up, shortened and compressed version of the original animation. As the design and this animation remain the intellectual property of the client, the following video is an example of my work on the project.

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The Start

In 2011 while working as a Junior Technician (Draftsman) for an Architecture firm, we were approached by an engineer hoping to create a 3D animation that would help present a bridge design to councils, investors and other professionals.

Being unable to perform the task in-house, I discussed the project with the engineer in a freelance capacity, as I had animation experience, and my Father had a multimedia business on the side of his full-time work.

Drafting, Models, Animation and Rendering

For this project I did drafting, production drawings, 3D models, along with animation and rendering of element focus sequences. I also produced props, environment models and textures to be used in the scenic sequences.

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