Joe Wehland

The following clips, are samples of my work on Blast Squad, a mobile PVP arena brawler developed by Chiseled Games ltd.	click here to download my latest resume.
	Beauty pass for characters shown in UI menus Here I show you a couple characters in the menu, rotate them around and then breakdown some of the key pieces of the shader. This shader completes in two passes (first pass for outlines, and the second pass for the rest of the character). There are zero lights used, the lighting is faked using normals and some fun math. • Outlines • Side Lighting • Faux-Spherical Lighting • Texture • Final Color Responsibilities: character shader's Look & Feel, implementation and optimization Sample Shader
	Lighting Components Here I breakdown the lighting components of a rooftop map. Again, there aren't any real lights used. For the most part all environment assets use vertex colors instead of textures to derive their color. To speed up performance, all the background models, are just vertex colors with a height gradient fog. • Fog Mask • Shadow Mask • Bloom Mask • Occlusion Mask • Animated Texture Responsibilities: The city background environment, and the playable area of the map; everything except for the playable map's border walls. All shader's Look & Feel, implementation and optimization
	Grass Shader I'm quite proud of the grass shaders used in Blast Squad. These stylized cubes of grass hide the player when they enter the tile (classic moba). In this game, the player always has a radius of detection, illustrated as the revealing circle surrounding the player character. Responsibilities: The city background environment, and the playable area of the map; everything except for the playable map's border walls. All shader's Look & Feel, implementation and optimization
	Frame Buffer This video steps through the drawcalls for the rooftop map. Showcasing the strategic ordering of each element for an optimized frame. You can also see how wide the player detection circle could be; grass tiles choose a specific view prefab based on distance to character. • 20 Opaque Drawcalls • 8 Transparent Drawcalls Responsibilities: The city background environment, and the playable area of the map; everything except for the playable map's border walls. All environment and character shader's Look & Feel, implementation and optimization
	Laser Fence A stylized take on the classic battleroyale boundary. Because the Blast Squad world is based on tiles, we continue this meta and make our boundary a rectangle. Quads with an animated energy texture are added to the world and close into the center of the map. The environment outside of this restricting playable space has its color remapped to a simple gradient. A thick line along the border highlights each 3d elements crosssection as the laser fence progresses. • Animated Texture Quads • Masked Boundary Line • Inside and Out of Bounds Masks Responsibilities: Everything but the characters. All environment and character shader's Look & Feel, implementation and optimization
	UI FX There are quite a few UI effects I created for this game: here are a few of the bigger items. • Opening Card Pack • Main Menu Shader FX • Circular Smoke Background Responsibilities: Opening Card Packs Chest shader and VFX. Fullscreen Transition. Parametric card animation, card VFX, and glitch shader for rewards. Main Menu Shader FX Parametric character animation, background screen smoke VFX, and racing button highlights with a momentary schling. Circular Smoke Background With vertex alpha driven animation and opacity.
	Character Ability VFX In addition to the shader and environment work, I also created the bulk of Blast Squad's character ability VFX. • Outback's Spiketrap • Quiver's Poison-cloud • Outback's Boomerang • Luna's Laser Pistols • Z3k's Zapping Stun • Maple's Ricocheting Buzzsaws • Gadget's Shock Rifle • Brittany's Powerglove & Flashpoint Beam Responsibilities: The environment and character VFX (though some of the texture sprites, were created by others and reused here.) . All environment, character and VFX shader's Look & Feel, implementation and optimization