MIKE DIMEO
michael.j.dimeo@gmail.com

Experience:

First Contact Entertainment,  Santa Monica, CA                            06/17 – current

Lead Environment Artist

Solaris Offword Combat
Firewall Zero Hour (including ongoing seasonality)

• Maintained the quality bar set by the Art Director at both the individual and external level.
• Managed outsourcing pipeline for all Environment Art Assets - Tracked hundreds of assets simultaneously, managed budget, migrated and tested external work, and gave feedback.
• Scouted, interviewed, hired, and trained new artists of all experience levels to transition smoothly into our studio.
• Set expectation and mentored Environment Artists on the team.
• Established content pipeline creation standards and created documentation.
• Consulted with Production team frequently regarding the status of the schedule.
• Represented the Environment Art department in all studio manners.
• Polished, optimized, and bug fixed levels.

Infinity Ward (Merged from Neversoft),  Woodland Hills, CA                            10/11 – current

Senior Environment Artist

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare + DLCs 1-3
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
Call of Duty: Ghosts + DLCs 1-3

• Mastered Radiant, our in-house level editor, to create photorealistic environments in conjunction with Maya and Zbrush to design props.
• Created an in-house training program to document best practices, tools, and promoted workflows
• Act as liaison between the Art team and Tools team to push for new tools, pipeline improvements, stability testing for experimental features, and share feedback
• Communicate the implementation of new tools, best practices, and present optimization techniques to the Art and Design teams.
• Took point as the team lead for all art related matters on assigned maps
• Managed level budgets by enforcing efficient usage of memory, shader complexity, triangulation efficiency, etc. to ensure optimal frame rate
• Trained interns and new hires to be proficient in the suite of in-house tools

Sledgehammer Games,  Foster City, CA                            10/10 – 10/11

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Environment Artist   

• Cleanly built photorealistic environments based on recognizable areas from countries around the world using Radiant.
• Use Maya to create props authentic to the area I'm assigned create.
• Reassign existing materials and models from preview Modern Warfare titles to work in our current game.
• Work one-on-one with the Level Designer to ensure that my art compliments gameplay and is in no way detrimental.
• Ensure that the game runs at 60 frames per second at all times with thorough optimization.
• Deliver a bug free experience to millions of gamers worldwide.

Liquid Entertainment,  Pasadena, CA                            3/10 – 10/10

Thor: God of Thunder

Environment Artist   

• Created stunning environment art and props for an all new 3rd Person Action/Adventure game in a variety of visual styles, such as jungle, lava, ice, and futuristic worlds.
• Set dress and flesh out existing areas already created previously by other team members using the Unreal 3 Editor.
• Repair various art related bugs, from collision issues, to stretching textures, to modifying existing referenced geometry. 

Inworld Studios, Marina Del Ray CA, 1/09 - 11/09

Sammy & Sue: GreenWorld (prototype, PC)

3D Artist

• Initially one of only two environment artists that essentially built an entire world for an exciting new kids MMO.
• Currently the only artist on the team, making everything from characters and rigging/skinning/animating them, to character clothing, to additional environment art.
• Granted large amounts of creative freedom, from making critical stylistic choices, to assisting with game design.
• Always delivered assets on time under an extremely tight schedule.
• Personally implemented a texture sharing system between me and the other artist at the time, minimizing the amount of unique textures that needed to be created.

Electronic Arts, Los Angeles CA, 5/08 - 10/08

Tiberium (X360/PS3/PC)

Environment Artist

• Create high quality environment art to populate the highly detailed and extremely varied levels of Tiberium.
• Use the Unreal 3 Editor to build entire environments, plus create and manage multiple materials and packages.
• Maintain a cohesive visual style between my assets and the rest of the team's, and the existing assets that have already been completed.
• Occasionally clean up assets that have been returned from an outsourcing team. This includes lowering Tri-counts, cleaning up bad collision, or lowering the amount of materials used on an asset.

Pandemic Studios, Los Angeles CA, 1/08 - 4/08

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (X360/PS3/PC)

Cinematic Artist

• Brought in at the last minute to composite multi-pass cutscenes being delivered daily from an outsourced studio
• Fixed a multitude of other issues that popped up during this pipeline, such as skinning, animation, and lighting issues
• Collectively rebuilt 380 shots as a team, when we were only expected to create 300

Skill Set

Maya, 3D Studio Max, Photoshop, Zbrush, Unreal 4, Radiant, Substance Painter, Megascans, Marmoset, xNormal

Education

The Art Institute of California-Los Angeles, Santa Monica, CA 2003 – 2006

• Bachelor of Science in Media Art and Animation with a concentration in Game Design
• Graduated Winter 2006

REFERENCES AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST.