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Behind The Build
Environment assets, material studies, and in-engine captures from the Madden pipeline.
Real-time environments & PBR material pipelines for one of gaming's most iconic franchises. Built for the broadcast era of sports.
Environment assets, material studies, and in-engine captures from the Madden pipeline.
Working on EA Sports' Madden NFL series was an opportunity to push real-time environment art to its limits — balancing visual fidelity with the strict performance budgets that console gaming demands. The "Made in Game" initiative specifically challenged us to create assets that looked photorealistic under dynamic lighting conditions, something historically difficult in real-time engines.
The goal was to make players feel like they were standing inside a broadcast-quality stadium — not just playing in a simulated one.
My contributions spanned the full environment pipeline: from initial concept blocking in Maya through high-frequency detail sculpting, PBR material creation in Substance, and final in-engine integration and optimization within Unreal Engine. Every asset had to meet strict poly-count, texture-budget, and draw-call targets while still holding up under the engine's dynamic day/night lighting system.
A core challenge was developing tileable and modular material libraries that could dress entire stadium environments efficiently. I built Substance Designer graphs for surfaces like natural turf, painted concrete, weathered metal railings, and stadium seating — ensuring each material responded authentically to PBR lighting without custom shaders.
This project sharpened my understanding of the intersection between artistic intent and technical constraint — a balance I carry into every design challenge I take on today. The discipline of working within real-time budgets directly informs how I think about performance in product design systems.