Technical Artist · Umeå, Sweden
James Åkesson
I make weird stuff with unconventional methods.
Real-time shaders in Unreal Engine and HLSL, characters sculpted in Blender, and tools that give artists their time back. This page is drawn live by a shader that re-creates four of them.
Scroll01 · Wind
Grass that knows where you're going
Every blade and gust here answers to one direction vector, with speed and gust rate exposed as parameters. In the game, the wind also turned toward the objective when players strayed from the path.
You are looking at it.
Read the case study02 · Displacement
Ground that gives way
Vertex offset looks flat until something stands on it. The ground under your cursor sinks and rims, the way it did under the player's feet in Unreal.
You are looking at it.
Read the case study03 · Rarity
Things light up when you get close
Items were hard to tell apart from the world, so they glow in their rarity colour as the player approaches. Bring the cursor near the pickups.
You are looking at it.
Read the case study04 · Ink
Line art drawn from the buffers
No inverted hulls and no hand-placed lines: depth, normals and colour differences decide where the ink goes, scaled by distance, then shaded by a gradient instead of lights. Keep scrolling to watch it build up.
You are looking at it.
Read the case studySelected work
Shaders, characters and tools
Moebius Shader
A shader that uses diffuse colours to make line art and gradients to simulate the Moebius art style.
Projection Mapping Textures
A tool that generates textures and applies them to models with one click.
Wind Shader & Interaction
Different shaders and effects I made for the wind in a game project.
Dynamic Displacement
A ground material that displaces the ground around the player so it doesn't look flat.
Item Rarity Shader
A shader that lights up to show nearby items and their rarity.
Queen Character Models
Two character models with inspiration from Arsen Asyrankulov.
Robot Character (after Esuthio)
A character model based on concept art by Esuthio.
Aquatic Character
A character model inspired by aquatic slugs.
Contact
Working on something that needs a technical artist? Say hello.
james@jamesakesson.comUmeå, Sweden