Joey Pagano

Technical Artist @ iRacing
M / 29 / ♐︎ / JRPGs / XrdThey pay me to make video games and then I go home to make even worse video games that piss you off.

About Joey

Hi, I'm Joey!I love jrpgs, fighting games, Persona 3, toshinori hiramatsu guitar solos, grindcore, mello yello, and posting middling opinions on the internet about games you probably don't want to play.I'm a Technical Artist working for NASCAR, with a long history in everything 3D/CG (and some 2D too). I make tools, shaders, bad games, 3D models, and any other necessary object that affords me a chance to be one step closer to the jrpgs that I wish they still made.I work in Unreal Engine for money and RPG Maker for love. I use Maya and Blender depending on the project. Zbrush, Houdini, Substance, and some light python, js, and hlsl.I think video games by design should piss you off at least a little bit or else they are a waste of your time. If I had a billion dollars I'd make a big budget jrpg with a regular enemy that can inflict a status ailment that deletes your save if you get KO'd.

3D Art - Demo Reel

2D Art

Professional Stuff

Wow! You're more interested in my professional skills! That's pretty cool- I do a lot of things that revolve around video games, but I run the whole gamut of CG art and production. You can check out my Resume, or some key projects from the llinks below. I'll even repost my Demo Reel just for you. Currently, I work fulltime as a Technical Artist at iRacing Studios, but I accept contract, consultation, and commission work on a case-by-case basis!As a Technical Artist, I prioritize creating custom tools to speed up workflows, implement assets into game engines, and optimize performance across the board for a variety of PC hardware configs or specific console platforms. With a strong focus on game development, my technical pursuits lead me to grafting unique solutions for your project's specific emergent needs- agnostic of the programs necessary to do so. My generalist pedigree toys with animation, modeling, rigging, scripting, rendering, texturing, material generation, and VFX simulations. And that’s before I eventually deploy all of these fancy little skills to the LED screen you rented out for Unreal Virtual Production. What can’t I do?!Whether it’s video games, film, TV, Virtual Production within the likes of Unreal- or a proprietary render engine within the 3D package of your choice- I do it all so that video games can live on forever. And we can save a few ms while we're at it.

Projects

Resume

Experience

iRacing (Monster Games) - Technical Artist
(January 2023 - Present)

Unreal Engine Technical Artist

  • Developing custom tools to expedite unique workflow necessities for NASCAR within Unreal Engine via Python, Editor Utility Widget, and C++

  • Performance testing and optimizing through custom tools and Unreal Insights for high fidelity and frame rates (as deployed on Xbox Series X/S and Playstation 5)

  • Creating custom pipeline/solutions for lighting, rendering, and overall race track performance

Meta - Technical Artist
(June 2022 - January 2023)

Social AR Technical Artist

  • Developed custom tools to validate asset benchmarks for 2P/3P creators

  • Created sample projects for SparkAR employing best practices and emergent technologies

  • Supported 3P vendors to create high quality AR games using unreleased Spark tools

THE FAMILY - Virtual Production - Producer / Technical Artist / 3D Generalist
(May 2018 - June 2022)

Virtual Production Producer (Unreal Engine / Maya)

  • Created virtual sets within Unreal Engine using custom assets for display on LED stage for film shoots

  • Pipeline authoring for asset development and deployment within Unreal project for Disguise

  • Authored procedural assets and tools for realtime modification during shoots at director’s behest

Realtime AR Architecture Experience (Maya / Unity 3D)

  • Repurposed Mira SDK AR kit to track custom made models over animated Unity spritesheets

  • Coded AR experience to allow for high fidelity AR assets to appear in real life

  • Implemented high quality baked JD architecture models into Unity with dynamic realtime lighting

Technical Artist / 3D Generalist

  • Creation of particle simulations and asset development/rigging to deploy to both SparkAR and Lens Studio

  • Driving VFX simulations for advertisement needs inside of HoudiniFX

  • Lighting specialist for renderings, realtime environments, and photogrammetry setups for VR resources

  • Photorealistic product renderings inside raytrace engines (Redshift) and realtime applications (Unity/UE4) for high fidelity clients in media and business sector

FitXR - Associate Animator
(September 2019 - December 2019)

BoxVR & Aerobics (Maya / Motionbuilder / Unity 3D)

  • Creation of particle simulations and asset development/rigging to deploy to both SparkAR and Lens Studio

  • Driving VFX simulations for advertisement needs inside of HoudiniFX

  • Lighting specialist for renderings, realtime environments, and photogrammetry setups for VR resources

  • Photorealistic product renderings inside raytrace engines (Redshift) and realtime applications (Unity/UE4) for high fidelity clients in media and business sector

MassDiGi Summer Invotation Program - Lead 3D Artist
(May 2017 - August 2017)

Lead 3D Artist

  • Scoped artistic vision for a full fledged 3D mobile action game for iOS/Android

  • 3D modeling, rigging, and animation with in-engine implementation inside Unity

Skills

  • Technical Art

  • Virtual Production

  • 3D Modeling

  • 3D Animation

  • 3D Rigging

  • VFX

  • Shader Development

  • Javascript

  • C#

  • C++

  • HLSL

  • Python

  • Unreal Blueprints

  • AR/VR Development

  • Lighting/Texturing/Rendering

  • Motion Design

  • Dynamics/Simulation

  • Quality Assurance Testing

  • Community Management

  • Event Coordination

  • Venue Procurement/Booking

Software

  • Autodesk Maya

  • Blender

  • Cinema4D

  • Unreal Engine 4/5

  • Unity

  • HoudiniFX

  • ZBrush

  • Substance Painter / Substance Designer

  • SparkAR

  • Lens Studio

  • Redshift

  • Octane Render

  • Photoshop

  • After Effects