Xdefiant | Technical Art
Xdefiant was a free-to-play, first-person shooter owned by Ubisoft. It was also my first AAA game credit.
I worked as a technical artist on this project, focusing mostly on map art optimization, map performance, and tools creation. I also touched on some shader development, and procedural workflows to process hundreds of assets.
I worked with a global team primarily based out of Winnipeg, Saguenay, San Francisco, and Osaka.
While I worked on hundreds of assets and maps, I did not create many assets myself. Most assets were created by the talented people at Ubisoft and our affiliated vendors either for the project or were pulled from earlier projects. The game contained years of technical debt that I assisted with optimizing.
The following are some example pieces I worked on. Brief descriptions below the images detail specific aspects I contributed to.
Vehicle Collision Optimization
I adjusted, built, and simplified over 40+ vechicle models for this game. Many vehicles were pulled directly from The Division and Farcry and had complicated collisions and rigs that were deemed too expensive for the fast-paced combat we wanted to showcase in Xdefiant. Due to the complexity of the various models and object graphs, each vehicle needed to be adjusted manually Maya and re-imported to Snowdrop.
Environment Art Performance Guidance
Most of my time on Xdefiant assisting the map production teams in Saguenay and San Franciso. My focus was on improving art asset performance for our maps, guiding artists on best practices (approved shaders, texture sizes, tri-count, etc), communicating issues/feedback, and building/requesting tools to speed up workflow. I guided 5+ maps to production and assisted with numerous others. Extensive documentation and communication was needed for these tasks.
Tools and Pipeline
During my time on Xdefiant I helped develop a number of proprietary tools to speed up workflows, cut down on art-hours worked, and improve overall performance of our maps. One, specific, tool I have agency to speak of was an out-of-bounds collision removal tool. I communicated between level art, lighting, and programming departments to get this tool built and tested. Essentially, the tool was designed so that all collision meshes of a particular type could be removed from objects outside of the volume created. I did not program this tool, but was part of the development process and demonstration/docu
Lighting and Rendering
Snowdrop has some internal tools for calculating lighting that rely on lighting volumes. Much of my work was to optimize these lighting volumes, run light baking systems, eliminate light bleeds (or work around them), and assist the lighting team to improve performance.
Xdefiant Game Credit
My name in the credits! Fun fact: I was the first employee in Winnipeg to join the Xdefiant team. I was able to help bring over 20+ other programmers to the project! I worked with so many amazing and talented artists, programmers, production staff. The project was a lot of fun and had many interesting problems to solve. Contact me to talk more about it!
Let's Chat
I'm always interested in hearing of new projects, jobs, and freelance opportunities.
Xdefiant Sunset
The game was sunset in 2025, and much of the official links are gone. This final message regarding the game is some of the last remnants of the project officially available.
