About
Resume
Articles
Projects
Levels
3D Models
2D Art and Textures
Special FX
Tech


  • Name: Sjoerd "Hourences" De Jong
  • Age: 24
  • Nationalities: Shared Dutch/Belgian
  • Languages: Fluent Dutch and English, basic French and Swedish
  • Main Skill: Level and Environment Designer/Artist
  • Specializations: Unreal Engine, first person shooters and visualizing/finalizing environments

  • Email: me@Hourences.com
  • LinkedIn: Profile (add me if you like) - LinkedIn Group Unreal Engine Developers (click to join the group)

  • Status: I am currently not interested in anything but short term contracts. If you are looking to recruit level designers and artists, you might be interested in posting an ad on my LD Job website





    • Permanent Positions:

     
  • February 2008 - Today: Senior Level Designer/Artist - Onsite - Starbreeze - Unannounced
    •  Details: Working as a Senior Level Designer and Artist for Starbreeze on an unannounced project.
    Programs used: In house engine, Photoshop


  • January 2006 - Today: Author - Personal projects - Game development related books and tutorials
    • Details: Author of two game development books: The Hows And Whys Of Level Design (2006), and The Hows And Whys Of The Games Industry (2007).
    I self published, directed and developed both books entirely on my own. Apart from obviously writing the books, I also created a large amount of artwork for both books, and I created a large number of example screenshots. I contracted freelancers to help me out, set up the lay out and distributed and marketed all of it. In addition I also set up interviews with dozens of professionals.
    Besides having written two books, I also succesfully set up a tutorial website which attracts thousands of visitors a month, and became one of the main sources for information on level design for Unreal Engine 3. I wrote dozens of tutorials, from beginner tutorials to advanced tutorials.
    More information can be found on book.Hourences.com.


  • October 2004 - August 2007: Senior Level Artist - Onsite - Khaeon - The Chronicles of Spellborn - PC - Fantasy MMORPG
    •  Details: As a Senior Level Artist at Khaeon in The Hague, The Netherlands, I had a lot of responsibilities, often taking over a large number of tasks of the lead or temporarily replacing him.

    Regular Level Design work: I designed floorplans, modeled large parts of landscape geometry (3DSMax), created and modified textures, placed thousands of lights/trees/rocks/anything else and made a large number of materials and effects.
    Special Level Design work: I created and designed all skyboxes of the game, nearly all day/night cycles, all other atmosphere settings, and all other technical challenging tasks.
    Directing the environment: I had my hand deep into roughly 80 percent of all environments in the entire game, both on an artistic as technical level. I issued technical guidelines and documents and assured that all art and levels that were made were optimized for the Unreal Engine and its rendering. On an artistic level it was my responsibility to style the entire game world and to guard the consistency. I set down the visual environment style the rest of the team followed, adjusted hundreds of textures and atmosphere settings to ensure a consistent result and together with the concept artist decided on what visual direction to take for what kind of environment.
    Team Development: Advisory role to the leads on who to put on what task and for how long. Taught the entire Environment Team (10 people) on how to use the Unreal Engine. Set up large parts of the environments team workflow and designed/directed almost all the new environment tools (25+) in cooperation with a programmer.
    Marketing support: Supported the Marketing department by providing them with dozens of specifically requested screenshots and other marketing content. Also, I was responsible for writing the environment chapter of the official art book.
    Programs used: Unreal engine 2, 3DSMax, Photoshop

  • September 2003 - September 2004: Environment Artist - Onsite - Guerrilla Games - Shellshock Nam 67 - PC/Xbox/PS2 - 3rd person action war game
    • Details: Worked fulltime on-site for Guerrilla in Amsterdam, The Netherlands on the games ShellShock : Nam 67' (Eidos) and Killzone (Sony). For Shellshock Nam 67' I was responsible for modelling the environment (Maya - large terrains and landscapes as well as small objects) and finishing the visuals in the levels by filling them in with vegetation and objects and lighting them out. For Killzone I performed cutscene work which included lighting out (mental ray rendering) most scenes and basic compositing.
    Programs used: In house engines, Maya, Photoshop, Shake



    Contract Positions:


  • January 2008: Level Design and Unreal Engine instructor – On-site Contract – VStep
    • Details: Contracted by VStep for two days as a private Unreal Engine instructor to introduce their development team into the world of the Unreal Engine and its editor UnrealEd. I also gave advice on how to best tackle certain problems.
    Programs used: Unreal Engine 3

  • January 2007 - December 2007: Level Designer/Artist - Offsite Contract - Webzen - Huxley - XBox360/PC - Sci-fi MMOFPS
    • Details: Contracted by Webzen to develop multiplayer levels for the Unreal Engine 3 MMOFPS Huxley. Tasks include designing the floorplans and gameplay of several levels and visualizing them by using provided assets as well as a number of unique self made assets, lighting it out and polishing it up with particles, materials and so on. Responsible for a good deal of the gameplay and visual design in all levels I create for them.
    Programs used:     Unreal Engine 3, Photoshop, 3DSMax

     
  • July 2007 - August 2007: Level Design and Unreal Engine instructor – On-site Contract – Playlogic
    •  Details: Contracted by Playlogic for a period of five days as a private Unreal Engine instructor to introduce their development team into the world of the Unreal Engine and its tools. Besides explaining how to build certain things, I also answered questions and gave advice on how to best tackle a certain something. I also spend a number of hours on production, building or improving a number of project specific assets to visualize those things I explained.
    Programs used:     Unreal Engine 3

  • December 2006 - February 2007: Level Designer/Artist - Offsite Contract - Prophecy Games - Unannounced
    •  Details: Contracted by Prophecy Games to help them get a prototype version of their UE3 game up in a very short period of time. Tasks included assembling the demo levels out of numerous premade stand alone rooms, touching them all up to improve the consistency between all the different areas, adding in streaming support and creating the surrounding landscape. I also relighted the entire demo level and created most of the materials and (particle and light) effects for the environment.
    Programs used:     Unreal Engine 3, Photoshop, 3DSMax

  • June 2005 - September 2005: Level Designer/Artist - Offsite Contract - Digital Extremes - Warpath - Xbox/PC - Futuristic multiplayer FPS
    •  Details: Contracted by Digital Extremes on WarPath. An Unreal Engine multiplayer FPS. I was a level designer and I created two levels for the game. My tasks were to plan and design the floorplan and gameplay design, creating the basic architecture, filling it up with existing assets and finishing it with lighting, particles and other effects.
    Programs used : Unreal engine 2, 3DSMax, Photoshop

  • May 2004 - August 2004: Level Designer/Artist - Offsite Contract - Epic Games - Unreal Tournament 2004 ECE - PC - FPS
    •  Details: Created ONS-Adara for Epic's UT2004 official AddOn pack Editors Choice. I made the entire map including the concept, gameplay design, modelling, texturing, sound and lighting.
    Programs used: Unreal engine 2, 3DSMax, Photoshop

  • May 2003 - September 2003: Level Designer/Artist - Offsite Contract - Epic Games - Unreal Tournament 2004 - PC - FPS
    •  Details: I created 6 maps (ONS-Torlan, DM-Rankin, DM-1on1-Idoma, DM-Rrajigar, ONS-Dria, ONS-Dawn) for Unreal Tournament 2004 by Epic and Psyonix I I created all maps from scratch off, including the gameplay design. Some maps were completely done by me (including modeling, texturing, lighting [3DSMax] and polishing) while for others I received additional help from Epic. Two of my six maps were in the demo as well as most press presentations and E3 demos. The demo was one of the fastest and most downloaded ones ever.
    Programs used: Unreal engine 2, 3DSMax, Photoshop

  • December 2002 - March 2003: 3D artist - Offsite Contract- Streamline Studios
    •  Details: I did some work for Streamline Studios. I worked on Street Racing Syndicate for British developer Eutechnyx ltd. During development, I was creating great amounts of realtime mesh pieces (3DSMax) as well as some additional textures.
    Programs used: 3DSMax, Photoshop




  • April 2006 - Today: Helped out team Red Nemesis with their large Unreal Tournament Singleplay mod Residual Decay primarily as a Texture Artist. I created and modified dozens of required environment textures and occasionally also made some large low poly natural landscapes for the levels.

  • December 2003 - December 2004: Participated several times in the prestigious MakeSomethingUnreal Contest and won several prizes. For more info see the Contest Section at the bottom of this page. The contest was the biggest gamemod related contest ever with over around a million dollar in prizes.

  • March 2004 - May 2004: Converted one of my custom levels for the popular mod Jailbreak UT2kx. The map was included in all versions. Jailbreak also got included on the UT2004 ECE cd's from Epic Games.

  • March 2004: Released a 1on1 Mappack together with a couple of mapping friends. Featuring six high quality 1on1 DM maps for UT2004. More info at : onevone.beyondunreal.com

  • November 2002: I created a level for the popular UT2003 mod Deathball

  • June 2002 - September 2002: I worked on my own Team Phalanx ' Xidia Gold, a 17 map long singleplayer mod for UT based on an alternative Unreal universe in which a mining outpost becomes overrun by Skaarj. I created around 7 maps for it, some textures and some decorational meshes.

  • February - June 2002: I worked on the giant UT singleplay mod Operation Na'Pali. The 40 map long singleplayer project was an unofficial sequel to Unreal with improved graphics, visual styling and ideas. I created 4 levels for the mod and helped out with several others. The mod received a number of awards, multiple pages magazine specials and hundreds of thousands of downloads.

  • March 2002: I created a map for the popular mod Jailbreak 3. JB-Raid was included in the release.

  • December 2001 - April 2002: I worked on my own Team Phalanx' Xidia. A Unreal Tournament Singleplay mod.

  • March 2000 - Today : Active as community mapper for various games, most notably the UT series. Over the years I've made dozens and dozens of custom stand alone levels. Receiving dozens of good reviews and tens of thousands of downloads.
    •


    I have participated in all rounds of the giant MakeSomethingUnreal Contest for UT2003 and 2004
    The MSU was the biggest game related contests ever held and was organized by Epic and Nvidia.

    It was worldwide and it covered a wide range of game dev related subjects such as Level design, Mods, Mutators, CharacterModels, etc. The contest started in summer 2003 and ended at the start of 2005. In total many thousands of levels and mods were submitted and the total prize amount was around a million dollar. The MSU had 4 independent phases plus the finals which were unfortunately only for mods.
    In the contest the top 20 of every category became a 'Honorable mention', out of those 20 around 10 'finalists' were chosen and of those 10 the 5 best ones were the true winners and the only ones who received a prize in the form of money.

  • Phase 4: My level ONS-Dinora won first place Best Onslaught Level.

  • Phase 3: My level DM-Argel received a 'Honorable Mention' in the category Best Level and the mod Jailbreak I converted my level Addien for won first place Best Gametype.

  • Phase 2: DM-Sae won 4th place Best Level Using Original Content plus was also a 'Finalist' in Best Level (gameplay).

  • Phase 1: CTF-Addien-Dwy received 4th place Best Level Using Original Content.



    • Gameplay:
  • Good understanding of gameplay and a strong view on what makes a game fun and interesting.
  • Well experienced in making concepts and floorplans that fit both the desired gameplay as the theme, atmosphere and the available amount of time and assets.
  • Experience with singleplayer as well as multiplayer gameplay, especially first person shooters.
  • A good amount of experience with a wide range of games, from racing to shooters to MMORPG to third person games.
  • Basic scripting knowledge.

    • Artistic:
  • Ability to create a breathing and immersing world by putting the environment to full use.
  • Strong understanding of architecture, composition and visual flow.
  • Can work with both BSP as Mesh based environments, or combinations.
  • Modelling and texturing. High and low poly and extensive modular experience.
  • Well skilled in Material and Shader creation.
  • Thoroughly experienced with lighting out scenes.
  • Well experienced with special FX such as particles, sound and story driven events. Weapon FX included.
  • Can handle a wide range of themes. From high tech to fantasy. Experienced with all.

    • Technical:
  • Highly experienced in all versions of the Unreal Engine. Including the correct workflow, optimization understanding, bug workarounds and tricks.
  • Can well document, describe and explain things and have done so numerous times.
  • Very strong problem solving skills.

    • Programs:
  • Highly experienced in UnrealED; all versions. +8 Years experience.
  • Strong understanding of Photoshop. +5 Years experience
  • Good knowledge of 3DSMax. +5 Years experience.
  • Well experienced in Maya. One year experience.
  • Intermediate rendering/lighting/materials experience in Scanline, Maxwell and Mental Ray.
  • Able to work with bug tracking software such as Bugzilla.
  • File managers (Alienbrain, Subverse/SVN, and Perforce).
  • Experienced with a wide range of other valuable programs (Hansoft, MS Office/Openoffice, Sound Forge, Acrobat Pro, Dreamweaver, etc.).
    •



  • Running the day to day tasks as an.admin of one of the biggest and oldest mapping sites in the world: Nalicity.
  • Gamedesign and Programming forum moderator at the biggest Belgian game portal: 9lives.be
  • Maintaining a few dozen UT modding community IRC channels including various help channels.




    • Site Design By GMotha, UArchitect, SolidSnake, Errol
    All content is © H o u r e n c e s - 2007