Frank J. Chao

About me

I am an innovative and serendipitous professional with 7+ years of uninterrupted experience in most of the work pipelines of videogame production and 3d real time graphics using Unreal Engine. Both one-man-band and committed team player, thrives in solving problems and taking ideas into real life solutions.

Tools and scripts

VFX

Shaders and materials

Lighting, Level art and design

Characters and Technical Animation

Lysward

Lysward is a single-player survival adventure set in a vast and unforgiving desert in the fantastical world of Umbra. Explore, craft, team up with your companion, and leverage the Amri magic to endure the heat.

Exoborne

Open-world, tactical extraction shooter set in a world torn apart by extreme forces of nature. Customize powerful exo-rigs to gain strategic advantage in ever-changing weather conditions. Face hostile factions, enemy players, and Mother Nature herself in intense high-stakes sessions.

Above Land

AAA MMOARPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Adventure Role Play Game) set in a magical world above the clouds, humans and mythological creatures attempt to find a way to co-exist. A place where technology and fantasy blend together, new world meets the old and epic adventures await around every corner.

FusyFox

FusyFox is a fast-paced multiplayer third-person arena shooter that allows players to play and participate in tournaments. It combines Free-to-play and blockchain-based Play-to-earn models.

Goldfever

Gold Fever is a challenging, free-to-play, blockchain-based, survival PVP MMO. Its map is covered by dense and dangerous rainforests, tall mountains and, rivers filled with gold. Players can craft tools for survival and combat, forage for plants and herbs, and compete with other players.

A-VOID

A-VOID is a free-to-play mobile puzzle game for android devices. Akira must save her home planet from being devoured by its sun turned into a monstrous red supergiant star. To save her kin she must pass the trials of the guardians and gather enough core-cubes to gain control of the temple of the ancestors.

Waterfall tool

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

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Snow Vector field baker

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

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Ravens Swarm

Cheap smart interactable GPU Particles System that simulate a swarm of agressive ravens. Done in Unreal Niagara using HLSL shader code modules to drive the behavior.

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Stylized Monsters Attack Particles

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

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Heavy Rain Post-Process

Complex Unreal Post-Process Material set to quickly and cheaply add adjustable heavy pouring rain to any scene.

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Impact frame post-process

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

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CRT shader for emulators

This a simple postprocess shader that simulates CRT TV like effects to be applied mainly in the Nintendo GameCube / Wii emulator Dolphin.

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Non Bipedal Creature Procedural Animation

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

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Stylized Monsters Animations

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

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Low Poly Stylized Zombies

A set of cartoonish zombies and skelletons I modelled in blender for a Jam game with some good friends.

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UNDER CONSTRUCTION

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Cheap smart interactable GPU Particles System that simulate a swarm of agressive ravens. Done in Unreal Niagara using HLSL shader code modules to drive the behavior.

Mesh Modelling and Animation

Mauris porta ex id nisl eleifend blandit a eu ex. Praesent nunc massa, lorem sed finibus ac, vehicula eget diam. Sed faucibus feugiat neque eget amet interdum. Nunc at tortor eget purus faucibus tempor. Donec sagittis suscipit porta. Duis mollis orci non erat convallis fringilla. Mauris porta ex sed nisl eleifend magna nisl et magna feugiat neque eget interdum. Nunc at tortor eget purus faucibus tempor. Donec sagittis suscipit porta. Duis mollis orci non erat convallis fringilla sed interdum.Duis mollis orci non erat convallis fringilla. Mauris porta ex id nisl eleifend blandit a eu ex. Praesent nunc massa, pellentesque sed finibus ac, vehicula eget diam. Sed faucibus feugiat neque eget interdum. Nunc at tortor eget purus faucibus sagittis suscipit porta.

Material and Vertex Animation Set Up

Mauris porta ex id nisl eleifend blandit a eu ex. Praesent nunc massa, lorem sed finibus ac, vehicula eget diam. Sed faucibus feugiat neque eget amet interdum. Nunc at tortor eget purus faucibus tempor. Donec sagittis suscipit porta. Duis mollis orci non erat convallis fringilla. Mauris porta ex sed nisl eleifend magna nisl et magna feugiat neque eget interdum. Nunc at tortor eget purus faucibus tempor. Donec sagittis suscipit porta. Duis mollis orci non erat convallis fringilla sed interdum. Nunc at tortor eget purus faucibus tempor. Donec sagittis suscipit porta. Duis mollis orci non erat convallis fringilla sed interdum.https://extensions.blender.org/add-ons/openvat/

Niagara System Set up

Mauris porta ex id nisl eleifend blandit a eu ex. Praesent nunc massa, lorem sed finibus ac, vehicula eget diam. Sed faucibus feugiat neque eget amet interdum. Nunc at tortor eget purus faucibus tempor. Donec sagittis suscipit porta. Duis mollis orci non erat convallis fringilla. Mauris porta ex sed nisl eleifend magna nisl et magna feugiat neque eget interdum. Nunc at tortor eget purus faucibus tempor. Donec sagittis suscipit porta. Duis mollis orci non erat convallis fringilla sed interdum.Duis mollis orci non erat convallis fringilla. Mauris porta ex id nisl eleifend blandit a eu ex. Praesent nunc massa, pellentesque sed finibus ac, vehicula eget diam. Sed faucibus feugiat neque eget interdum. Nunc at tortor eget purus faucibus sagittis suscipit porta.

Behavior and avoidance HLSL script

Mauris porta ex id nisl eleifend blandit a eu ex. Praesent nunc massa, lorem sed finibus ac, vehicula eget diam. Sed faucibus feugiat neque eget amet interdum. Nunc at tortor eget purus faucibus tempor. Donec sagittis suscipit porta. Duis mollis orci non erat convallis fringilla. Mauris porta ex sed nisl eleifend magna nisl et magna feugiat neque eget interdum. Nunc at tortor eget purus faucibus tempor. Donec sagittis suscipit porta. Duis mollis orci non erat convallis fringilla sed interdum.Duis mollis orci non erat convallis fringilla. Mauris porta ex id nisl eleifend blandit a eu ex. Praesent nunc massa, pellentesque sed finibus ac, vehicula eget diam. Sed faucibus feugiat neque eget interdum. Nunc at tortor eget purus faucibus sagittis suscipit porta.

3D Neighbor Grid Interparticle Collisions

Mauris porta ex id nisl eleifend blandit a eu ex. Praesent nunc massa, lorem sed finibus ac, vehicula eget diam. Sed faucibus feugiat neque eget amet interdum. Nunc at tortor eget purus faucibus tempor. Donec sagittis suscipit porta. Duis mollis orci non erat convallis fringilla. Mauris porta ex sed nisl eleifend magna nisl et magna feugiat neque eget interdum. Nunc at tortor eget purus faucibus tempor. Donec sagittis suscipit porta. Duis mollis orci non erat convallis fringilla sed interdum.Duis mollis orci non erat convallis fringilla. Mauris porta ex id nisl eleifend blandit a eu ex. Praesent nunc massa, pellentesque sed finibus ac, vehicula eget diam. Sed faucibus feugiat neque eget interdum. Nunc at tortor eget purus faucibus sagittis suscipit porta.

This a simple postprocess shader that simulates CRT TV like effects to be applied mainly in the Nintendo GameCube / Wii emulator Dolphin. The shader applies as cheaply as possible a set of layered effects to the rendered image:
♦ Lens like distortion: to simulate curvature on CRT TVs
♦ Bloom: To simulate the color bleeding that CRT get specially on bright areas of the image
♦ Increased Saturation and Contrast: To try to emulate the perceptual color ranges in CRT TVs
♦ Vignette: Adds to the CRT effect
♦ Pixels and Scanlines: Main CRT featuresCheck it out on Github

Regular rendering before applying the post-process shader

After applying the post-process shader

For the puzzle game A-VOID the art pipeline was designed to be compatible with having the best rendering performance possible so it could run on mobile devices. Since the scale and scope of the level scenes was small it was decided to go fully with the use of purely unlit materials. Several techniques where used to create the textures, mainly prebaked lighting via a twin blender scene, digitally processed images and hand-painted textures. The game has 9 color themed scenes (yes, names were an homage to several sci-fi literature authors, can you get all the refs? ;) ):
► a Hub for accessing all the worlds
► Montag Planet: a canyon in a volcanic planet
► Nautilus Moon: a oceanic rainy moon
► Rama Asteroid: a frozen asteroid
► Atreides Nebula: a yellow gasy nebula
► Dyson Reactor: an alien huge energy structure
► Morlock Blackhole: the orbit of a black hole
► Arroway Hyperspace Run: hyperspace wormhole
► Trantor Dimensions: huge abstract structures

The Hub level is a single room that hold the doors to all the actual playable puzzle levles. The room is composed of 4 meshes, namely a walls mesh, a transparent floor mesh, a reflections mesh below it and a doors mesh. The doors get activated as certain number of puzzles get solved in each level. This is done sequentially so lighting in the room changes as the glowing doors get activated. For this several lightmap textures had to be baked and the materials had to be synced with the game advancement to reflect correctly the unlocked levels.

Montag planet level was made just as simple canyon of black volcanic rock with a lava river flowing below. The scene has a very simple construction that comprises the canyon mesh itself, a lava river mesh, a sky sphere and a couple of smoke particle systems. The main canyon texture was baked also from its twin scene in blender. The Canyon mesh could be made fairly high poly count thanks to the simplcitiy of the scene and the large breathing room the usage of extremely cheap rendering gave us performance-wise. This allowed for making it more interesting visually.

The lava river mesh was made to have a straight UV layout despite its curved topology in 3D space. This allowed for a cheap way of having an interesting flowing pattern.

Regular Zombie

Skelleton

Big Zombie

Text

Mauris porta ex id nisl eleifend blandit a eu ex. Praesent nunc massa, lorem sed finibus ac, vehicula eget diam. Sed faucibus feugiat neque eget amet interdum. Nunc at tortor eget purus faucibus tempor. Donec sagittis suscipit porta. Duis mollis orci non erat convallis fringilla. Mauris porta ex sed nisl eleifend magna nisl et magna feugiat neque eget interdum. Nunc at tortor eget purus faucibus tempor. Donec sagittis suscipit porta. Duis mollis orci non erat convallis fringilla sed interdum.Duis mollis orci non erat convallis fringilla. Mauris porta ex id nisl eleifend blandit a eu ex. Praesent nunc massa, pellentesque sed finibus ac, vehicula eget diam. Sed faucibus feugiat neque eget interdum. Nunc at tortor eget purus faucibus sagittis suscipit porta.

Lysward is a single-player survival adventure set in a vast and unforgiving desert in the fantastical world of Umbra. Explore, craft, team up with your companion, and leverage the Amri magic to endure the heat.

Role: Senior Technical Artist
Work Form: External Partner / Outsource
Scope: Specialized Services
Main Areas: Technical Lighting, Actors and Gameplay Logic, Enviroment Art, Tools and Scripting, Profiling and Optimization

The owning company retains all the rights to any technical description or breakdown of the work done. All that is presented here are just final results and minimal descriptions of some of the work done.

Open-world, tactical extraction shooter set in a world torn apart by extreme forces of nature. Customize powerful exo-rigs to gain strategic advantage in ever-changing weather conditions. Face hostile factions, enemy players, and Mother Nature herself in intense high-stakes sessions.

Role: Technical Artist
Work Form: In-House, Full-Time
Scope: Full cycle development
Main Areas: Procedural Content, Enviroment Art, Gameplay Actors, Tools and Scripting, Materials and VFX, Profiling and Optimization.

The owning company retains all the rights to any technical description or breakdown of the work done. All that is presented here are just final results and minimal descriptions of some of the work done.

AAA MMOARPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Adventure Role Play Game) set in a magical world above the clouds, humans and mythological creatures attempt to find a way to co-exist. A place where technology and fantasy blend together, new world meets the old and epic adventures await around every corner.

Role: Technical Artist
Work Form: In-House, Full-Time
Scope: Full cycle development
Main Areas: Procedural Content, Procedural Animations, Gameplay Actors, Tools and Scripting, Special Materials and VFX, Profiling and Optimization.

The owning company retains all the rights to any technical description or breakdown of the work done. All that is presented here are just final results and minimal descriptions of some of the work done.

FusyFox is a fast-paced multiplayer third-person arena shooter that allows players to play and participate in tournaments. It combines Free-to-play and blockchain-based Play-to-earn models.

Role: Senior Technical Artist
Work Form: In-House, Full-Time
Scope: Full cycle development
Main Areas: Procedural Content, Gameplay Actors, Level Design, Tools and Scripting, Materials and VFX, Modular Characters, Vehicles Gameplay, Profiling and Optimization.

The owning company retains all the rights to any technical description or breakdown of the work done. All that is presented here are just final results and minimal descriptions of some of the work done.

Gold Fever is a challenging, free-to-play, blockchain-based, survival PVP MMO. Its map is covered by dense and dangerous rainforests, tall mountains and, rivers filled with gold. Players can craft tools for survival and combat, forage for plants and herbs, and compete with other players.

Role: Senior Technical Artist
Work Form: In-House, Full-Time
Scope: Full cycle development
Main Areas: Procedural Content, Procedural Animations, Gameplay Actors, Tools and Scripting, Materials and VFX, Modular Characters, Vehicles Gameplay, Profiling and Optimization.

The owning company retains all the rights to any technical description or breakdown of the work done. All that is presented here are just final results and minimal descriptions of some of the work done.

A-VOID is a free-to-play mobile puzzle game for android devices. Akira must save her home planet from being devoured by its sun turned into a monstrous red supergiant star. To save her kin she must pass the trials of the guardians and gather enough core-cubes to gain control of the temple of the ancestors.

Role: Art Lead
Work Form: In-House, Full-Time and Consulting
Scope: Full cycle development
Main Areas: 3D Art, Level and Game Design, Gameplay Actors, Tools and Scripting, Materials and VFX, Profiling and Optimization.

The owning company retains all the rights to any technical description or breakdown of the work done. All that is presented here are just final results and minimal descriptions of some of the work done.