Name: Sjoerd "Hourences" De Jong
Age: 26
Nationalities: Shared Dutch/Belgian
Main Skills:Tutoring, Leading, Level and Environment Designer/Artist
Specializations: Unreal Engine, and first person shooters.
Email: me@Hourences.com
(add me if you like) - My LinkedIn Groups: Unreal Engine Developers and Level Design
Status: I am interested in hearing about interesting opportunities. Check out my Services page for more information.
Permanent Positions:
January 2010 - Today: Creative Director/Project Lead - Onsite - Teotl Studios - The Ball - Unreal Engine 3
Details: Employed by my own studio
Teotl Studios and currently wrapping up development on "The Ball".
February 2008 - October 2009: Senior Level Designer/Artist - Onsite - Starbreeze - Unannounced - In house engine
Details: Worked as a Senior Level Designer/Artist for
Starbreeze on a large unannounced project from EA.
October 2004 - August 2007: Senior Level Artist - Onsite - Khaeon - The Chronicles
of Spellborn - PC - Fantasy MMORPG - Unreal Engine 2
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.
Directed 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.
September 2003 - September 2004: Environment Artist - Onsite - Guerrilla Games - Shellshock Nam 67
- PC/Xbox/PS2 - 3rd person shooter - In house Engine
Details: Worked full time on-site for Guerrilla in Amsterdam,
The Netherlands on the games ShellShock : Nam 67' (Eidos) and to lesser extend on Killzone
(Sony). For Shellshock Nam 67' I was responsible for modeling 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.
Contract Positions:
January 2007 - December 2007: Level Designer/Artist - Offsite Contract - Webzen - Huxley - XBox360/PC
- Sci-fi MMOFPS - Unreal Engine 3
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
.
December 2006 - February 2007: Level Designer/Artist - Offsite Contract - Prophecy Games - Unreal Engine 3
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.
June 2005 - September 2005: Level Designer/Artist - Offsite Contract - Digital Extremes - Warpath -
Xbox/PC - Futuristic multiplayer FPS - Unreal Engine 2
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.
May 2004 - August 2004: Level Designer/Artist - Offsite Contract - Epic Games - Unreal Tournament 2004
ECE - PC - FPS - Unreal Engine 2
Details: Created ONS-Adara for Epic's UT2004 official AddOn pack Editors Choice. I made the entire map including the concept,
gameplay design, modeling, texturing, sound and lighting.
May 2003 - September 2003: Level Designer/Artist - Offsite Contract - Epic Games - Unreal Tournament
2004 - PC - FPS - Unreal Engine 2
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 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 game demo ever.
December 2002 - March 2003: 3D artist - Offsite Contract- Streamline Studios - In house Engine
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.
September 2008 - Today: Lecturer and Guest Teacher - Various Educational Institutions
Details: Regurlaly going by universities and educations to talk first and foremost about the Unreal Engine and in a lesser extend also about Level Design, and working in the games industry. The length of these lectures varies, from a couple of hours to several weeks long. I have by The Garden, Playground Squad, Digital Arts and Entertainment, Gotland University, Stockholm University, Future Games.
January 2008: Level Design and Unreal Engine instructor – On-site Contract – VStep - Unreal Engine 3
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.
July 2007 - August 2007: Level Design and Unreal Engine instructor – On-site Contract – Playlogic - Unreal Engine 3
Details: Contracted by Playlogic for a period of five days (spread over 2 months) 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.
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 - SE 2008), and The Hows And Whys Of The Games Industry (2007).
I self published, directed and developed both books entirely on my own. Apart from writing the books, I also created a large amount of artwork for both books, and dozens of example screenshots. I contracted freelancers to help me out, set up the lay out and distributed and marketed the books. In addition I also set up interviews with dozens of professionals.
Besides having written two books, I also successfully set up a tutorial website which attracts thousands of visitors a month, and became one of the main sources for information on Unreal Engine 3. More information can be found on book.Hourences.com.
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May 2008 - November 2009: Designed and directed the UT3 mod "The Ball". I came up with the initial design for the original singleplay horror puzzle mod, designed the art and environment styling, and I assembled a team of 14 people and lead them through several fixed milestones, passing each one without a hitch. I also created hundreds of textures, meshes, particles, and several levels for the mod. The mod has so far already won a range of awards in some of the worlds largest competitions such as the ModDB MOTY and the MakeSomethingUnreal contest.
December 2007: Started, directed, and released the UT3 HOLP Mappack together
with a couple of professional mapping friends. Featuring six low poly but very hardcore and competitive gameplay orientated CTF and DM levels for UT3.
April 2006 - December 2007: 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 game mod 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.
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Over the years I participated many times in the gigantic one million dollar MakeSomethingUnreal Contests for UT2004 and for UT3. The MSU contest were the biggest modding related contests there have been on the world, and were organized and judged by Epic Games.
The contests were world wide and ran for a year and a half. They were divided up in four independent rounds plus the grand finals. Each round there were thousands of entries from all over the world. The top 20 of every category received a 'Honorable mention' award, out of those 20 around 10 'finalists' were picked and
of those 10 the top 5 was selected, which receive cash prizes.
UT3 MSU Grand Finals: My project The Ball won second place Best Mod in the Grand Finals of the contest.
UT3 MSU Phase 4: The Ball won first place Best FPS Mod, and 4th place Best Art In Mod
UT3 MSU Phase 3: The Ball won first place Best FPS Mod, second place Best Level For Mod, 5th place Best Use of Physics
UT3 MSU Phase 2: CTF Krodan won third place Best Graphics in a level. My mod The Ball Oztoc won third place Best Mod and first place Best Use of Physics.
UT3 MSU Phase 1: DM Krodan received Honorable Mention Best Deathmatch Level. CTF Lopo was a finalist in the CTF category. My mod The Ball Pehua won first place Best Gametype and first place Best Use of Physics.
UT2004 MSU Phase 4: My level ONS-Dinora won first place Best Onslaught Level.
UT2004 MSU 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.
UT2004 MSU Phase 2: DM-Sae won 4th place Best Level Using Original Content plus was also a 'Finalist' in Best Level (gameplay).
UT2004 MSU Phase 1: CTF-Addien-Dwy received 4th place Best Level Using Original Content.
Over the years I have been interviewed frequently by various websites, about both commercial or non commercial projects. Here is a short summary of the largest interviews I have done to date.
ModDb.com - "Executed with what seems like razor sharp focus. This should come as no surprise when you look at the person at the helm of the project."
Modcenter.com/Planetunreal.com (IGN) - "He is widely recognized for producing some of the most popular levels for the Unreal Series"
Game-Artist.net (CGTalk) - "Continuing to be a successful level designer"
BeyondUnreal.com - about TCOS - "The wonderful style and remarkable talent behind The Chronicles of Spellborn is evident"
BeyondUnreal.com - about The Ball - "Hourences is well known for his many outstanding custom and retail levels"
Ran the day to day tasks of one of the biggest and oldest mapping sites in the world:
Nalicity for around four years. The website contained nearly 10. 000 levels and thousands of users.
Gamedesign and Programming forum moderator at the biggest Belgian game portal: 9lives.be
Moderating a few Unreal modding community channels on IRC.
Running the Unreal Developers and Level Design group on LinkedIn, used by over 1500 professionals.
Organized a cross community level design survey - over a 1000 people participated in the survey including 150 professional level designers.
I was one of the jury members of the Scene From A Movie contest, organized by CGTalk and Game-Artist.net, and sponsored by Luxology, 3D.SK, CGTextures, Epic Games, Crazybump.
