Spirit Crossing

Copyright: Spry Fox and Netflix Games

Discover, befriend, and care for Totoro-like spirits to build a cozy cooperative village! Climb everything, make awesome friends, and build a home together. A 3rd person climbing-centric non-violent MMO made in Unreal Engine 5. Find out more here!

I began working on Spirit Crossing with the Spry Fox team in 2019, helping to build the prototype with a small development team and two artists - myself and the Art Director, Justin Oaksford, who designed and established the overall visual style of the game. As the team grew, moving from prototype to pre-production, I took on the role of Lead Character Artist, focusing on developing all pipelines and processes for Character Art. I developed character models, textures, materials, set visual quality bars, and designed custom shaders. I also lead Character Technical Art processes, including VFX, blueprints, and anim blueprints, rigging (working as the team’s sole rigger), retargeting, and skinning as it relates to our Character pipelines. I hired and trained character artists throughout production and worked closely with the team’s animators, developing tools that are easy to use and animation friendly. I also contributed 3D animations early in prototyping and pre-production. I continue to maintain character art documentation and lend time to environment and concept art as needed. Since our early prototype, I’ve been heavily involved in the visual direction, diversity, and ethos of our characters and how players use character customization as a tool for self expression, representation, and the exploration of identity.

Villagers

Modular Player Characters

Gliders: Models, Vertex Offset Shaders, and Trail VFX

Bears

Spirits

Sky Fish, Fish Vertex Shaders, Cloud VFX

Player Equipment and Instruments

Blots

Fluffalos