Dario D.

- Workstation Pic
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Summary of what I specialize in: 3d Modeling, Mapping, Animation, Unwrapping/Skinning, Sound Design, Concept Art (and matte painting), and Architectural and Fashion Concepts. Also fluent in Photography, Cinematography, Video Editing, Game Design, and Writing (books, articles, screenplays, scripts), having written a 250,000 word novel (Harry Potter size), and close to 2 million words total in all written material (currently working on a second novel). On the side, I design software interfaces (whether as concepts or skins), study psychology

Work History: I don't actually "work" (I'm a freelance projectician, "working" from home) but was offered an all-in-one artist position at Psyonix (a small developer that contributed to Gears of War, Unreal Tournament 3, and Unreal Tournament 2004) for an Xbox Live Arcade game.
Some years back, I was going to make video tutorials on Adobe Audition (sound design program) for the website of Layers Magazine (Adobe stuff), but declined after my trial video was accepted, soI could focus on my projects. I needed some spare change to pay for project gear, but decided to do without.

Email:
dario@deefrag.com
(pretty-please no "just to chat" emails. Wayyy too busy.)

Writing

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Technical Experience | Wrote a 250,000 word novel, and presently working on a second. Have written nearly 2-million words total in my career, including: novels, film screenplays & scripts (not feature-length), game design documents (which are game screenplays), software design documentation, short stories, poems, and in-game mission lore.

Said Experience | Extremely comfortable writing anything you can read... minus text-books, license agreements, and corporate press releases [vomits]. Anything half-interesting that you can read.

Photography




- My Flickr Photos
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Technical Experience | Full understanding of photography, composition, lens optics, wireless flash systems, soft-boxes, lighting, contrast, and yes, Photoshop. I shoot people (whether portraits or freestyle), landscapes, night-shooting, animals, urban, and frequently use a green-screen to blend photography with computer graphics.
[example: a composite (blend) of 4 photos, plus tons of Photoshop painting and effects]

Said Experience | If photography were a trampoline, I'd be jumping on it.
...or something.

3d Studio Max 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011


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Technical Experience | Modeling, Unwrapping / Skinning, Rendering

Said Experience | Extremely comfortable with all versions of 3dsMax, capable of learning the most complex methods and tools in 1-2 days, and heavily accustomed to content creation blended with other apps. I don't do character animation.

Adobe Photoshop 4, 5, 6, 7, CS, CS2, CS3, CS4, CS5


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Technical Experience | Deep knowledge of PS, years of experience in all fields, and daily use for every topic imaginable.

Said Experience | Photoshop is affectionately my dog. :)

Adobe Audition & General Sound Design

- Gunreal Sound Demo MP3
- Thief Sound Demo MP3
- The Dark Sketch (12-minute film)
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Technical Experience | Pretty good knowledge of Adobe Audition (I don't follow most advanced audio terminology), creating all areas of sound for games and film. I was going to create sound design video tutorials for the website of "Layers" Magazine (Adobe stuff), but declined (to focus on my work).

Said Experience | Passionate about sound design, constructing all manner of sounds (including ambient music) by reworking, mixing, very heavy general manipulation, and even compositing select frequencies of multiple sounds to create entirely new ones, at film-quality, often with little or no resemblance to the original source audio.

Sound Design Philosophy | Could write a book on the philosophy of sound design, covering the theory of artistic sound design, how (and why) to create a powerful atmosphere, defining and sticking to styles, working with stock audio, and making it all take over the audience's imagination (which brings the overall presentation to levels unachievable by high quality sound effects alone).

Adobe Premiere & General Video Production


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Technical Experience | Good knowledge of nearly all aspects of Premiere. Created a 12-minute independent film, controlling 100% of technical process, using Premiere to do just about everything it does.

Said Experience | Good understanding of Premiere, and very knowledgeable about the entire process of film-making, from acting to directing, writing, and making a message more powerful by way of choosy editing.

Hammer (Half-Life 2)



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Experience | Solid experience with all aspects of Hammer, and author of DM_Plaza17 (a large, 5-star voted DM and TDM map, constructed in 10 days (plus a lengthy cleanup period))

Said Experience | Learning Hammer while building Plaza17 was a christening ordeal that has left me extremely comfortable with Hammer, and began my fruitful journey into the Source engine. I can make maps in an relatively short time now, without the additional cleanup of optimization, as my knowledge of the engine, and theory of Source mapping has reached "the comfort zone".

Author of DM_Plaza17
- Voted 5 stars on FilePlanet (both versions; beta and final. Both posted on Fileplanet's Half-Life 2 front page)
- Voted 9.7/10 on FileFront
- Voted 5 stars in all categories on Map Factory (gameplay, design, originality, ambience, framerate)

Unreal Editor


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Technical Experience | Deep knowledge of UnrealEd (Unreal Engine 2), including creation and management of packages, shaders, and all forms of custom content.

Said Experience | Extremely comfortable with UnrealEd, with years of experience.

Author of:
ONS-Torlanights (night-time conversion of ONS-Torlan)
ONS-Dreamus (desert dust-storm, made to learn Unreal Ed in-depth)
ONS-Dreamus2 (a "Make Something Unreal Contest" winner)
ONS-Dreamus2SE (atmospheric effects exercise - wind/smoke/clouds/dust/fire)

Dromed (Thief 2)


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Experience (general) | Conceptualized and constructed a visual and audio-heavy Thief 2 mission (never completed), with a dense story, gameplay spanning three nights, carefully done atmosphere, and graphics and creative invention of effects that were new to the Thief engine. Using simple methods of exploitation, I introduced fake Volumetric Lighting, Volumetric Shadows (even in the shape of a character walking through fog), and circular sprites (which look like crystal balls) suspended by 3d ropes in such a way as to make the sprite look 3d when viewed from any angle (more below). Also hashed together several new objects by salvaging existing ones.
(click links to see examples)
- [first time volume lighting / volume fog effects were seen in Thief engine]
- [these sprites look 3d and natural no matter what angle you view them from]
- [this suspended orb is a sprite, looking perfectly 3d as you rotate around]
- [first time somewhat realistic fire was seen in Thief]
- [bent, natural-looking rails made of stretched kitchen cutting boards (bent rails were novel at the time)]
- [first time a mostly realistic forest was portrayed in Thief]
- [fake volumetric fog covers the ceiling]
- [partially-completed hall with chandelier suspended by stretched blow-gun darts, with upside-down gold waste-basket on top, and nearby rails made of stretched pen-holders, with shrunken waste-baskets on top]

"Faceless" (unreleased) Screenshots & Sounds Praise:
- "Thats genius work of magnificent ART" (quote by dealasteal)
- "Those are phantasmagoric, they are like "The Inverted Manse" meets "Calendra's Legacy" meets "The Seventh Crystal" (quote by ShadowWolf, comparing Faceless screenshots/sound to the most popular Thief 2 missions at the time)
- "...seriously, that mission looks AWESOME!" (van Hellsing)
- "Just one word, Fantastic." (azrarhn)
- "The lighting especially looks absolutely brilliant..." (Tomi)
- "Amazing.... I absolutely love it!!" (sterlino)
- "No need to say more! Amazing graphics, atmospheric environments and I love the music. All look at it, this is art." (The Phantom)
- "With such beautiful FMs under development, who needs Thief III?" (G'len)
- "Unbelievable atmosphere, unique architecture, good texture use overall..." (Renzatic)
- "Simply breathtaking!" (Izeman)
- "I am so looking forward to playing this FM (fan mission). I have been awing over it far more then any upcoming FM for months now and I think I am sure that this will be my most favorite FM to play of all time." (Dark Ghost Lord)

Web & Software Design
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Technical Experience | Years of experience fleshing out website interfaces in Photoshop, then building them up in Expression Web (FrontPage) or Dreamweaver, based on the Photoshop concepts.
Made Deefrag.com, Alphaila.com, Zietanus.com (unfinished), and Gunreal.com.
Also see this practice template.

Said Experience | Passionate about all forms of website and program interface design, and could write a book on its theory.

	- A Photoshop concept of the Omega Theme, for WordPress blogs. After completion, this Photoshop concept was passed to web programmers, to be stripped down, and turned into a useable theme. (final product - still unfinished, until I find a programmer)
	- A Photoshop concept of a make-believe Unreal Editor 3 (Unreal Engine 2 version), originally based on a screenshot of the actual editor (looks like this). This was basically a wish-list of features and layout.
	- A Photoshop concept of Gunreal's shopping interface. Like the Omega Theme, the final working version was created using this as the source for everything, so the final product is nearly identical.
	- A Photoshop concept of a make-believe Unreal Editor 4 feature, called Unreal Classroom. (just the window on the left)
	- A Photoshop concept of an early interface idea for a somewhat RPG-style Gunreal game-mode (back when it was planned for Half-Life 2).
	- A Photoshop concept of a dual Start Menu idea for Windows. (link to description page)