PATRICK BALL

A Little About
Myself.

Mission oriented, highly motivated, creative, detail-attentive, determined, and effective. I have over 4 years of experience developing quality 3D Assets using an array of professional development tools, including,

Blender
Unity 2018
Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.
Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.)
Autodesk softwares (AutoCAD, Maya, 3ds Max)

As a passionate digital artist, I routinely create 3D models with clean topology which are fully rigged, animated, UV mapped, textured, and optimized for integration into the environment for which they are intended.
I am fluid in C#, Javascript, and Lua programming languages and use best practices to create clean, logical, understandable, maintainable and expandable code.
Experienced instructor and public speaker. I believe in raising up those around me, so when I'm not busy developing my own skills, I can be found helping to develop the skills of my peers.

Contact me

PUBLISHED WORK:

Breakable Glass Complete Solution
My highest-rated and best-selling asset on the unity asset store. 26 out of 26 reviewers have given it a perfect rating and there are 18 5-star reviews that detail why. I spent a lot of time making sure that this VR-ready asset covered every detail a developer might need from breakable glass. On display in this asset is my attention to detail, and my ability to create well-documented, clean, functional, expandable C# code using Object Oriented Programming (OOP) best practices.
Click the picture to the right to see it in the Unity Asset Store.
Read the Reviews for yourself!
If You have Firefox installed, you can Check out the Web Demo !
(Not currently supported by other browsers).

Medieval Scroll GUI Menu
Developed in 2 weeks as a special request. This project shows off my ability to apply creative solutions to new problems quickly. The main challenge was to marry 3D modeling and animation with 2D User Interface (UI) animation. The custom seamless textures showcase my artistic ability and mastery of image manipulation softwares such as Photoshop and GIMP.

Just click the picture to the right to see it in the Unity Asset Store, OR,
If You have Firefox installed, you can Check out the Web Demo !
(Not currently supported by other browsers).

Accurate 3D Model of Actual Office Building
I am currently working as a Maintenance Database Analyst for a small government-contracting company. When they said they needed a floorplan, I volunteered to provide it. After taking measurements, I made a very accurate 2D line drawing of the space. My employer was quite satisfied with this... but I wasn't. Always looking for new ways to improve my skills, I challenged myself to bring the building to life in 3 dimensions.
I took photographs of the different textures in the building and used my mastery of image manipulation software to create photo-realistic, yet highly-optimized seamless textures. No important detail has been glossed over - even the doors are installed on the correct side of their frames, with the handles in the correct positions.
Click on the picture to the right to explore the 3D version that I published to the Sketchfab website!

SKILLS

Organic Modeling, Rigging and Animation

Life is motion. Capturing that motion is a passion and pastime of mine. When creating a 3D character, modelling a realistic mesh with beautifully-rendered textures is just the beginning of the process.

Almost any model can be rigged for animation by giving the mesh a kind of "skeleton" and then mapping the vertices of the model to each bone, weighting each vertex for how much (or little) it should move with the bone. It is a complex process, but I am well-versed in several methods of doing it.

After rigging a model, the fun part really begins. Using my knowledge of anatomy and sculpting techniques, I am able to generate natural-looking animations for all kinds of actions very quickly. positioning the model into different poses and then tweening the frames in between to create seamless organic animations is arguably the most fun part of any project.

When all of the raw animations have been created for any given character, It's time to integrate it into the environment. I am experienced at bringing the character - complete with textures and animations - into Unity and programming an Animator Controller to trigger and blend specific animations for specific inputs or events. If creating the animations is the most fun part, seeing the finished character displaying the custom animations in the finished project is the most rewarding.

Low-Poly Photo-Realistic
Asset Creation

I quickly and routinely create digital assets which are both low-poly and highly detailed, using a variety of techniques at different stages of the workflow.

These assets use photographs that have been optimized and then, basically, wrapped around the model to create a realistic texture. After this relatively simple procedure, I render out several image maps such as normal maps, metallic maps and roughness maps to combine into custom coded material shaders to enable Physically Based Rendering (PBR).

The result is a very efficient asset that looks fantastic, but requires a relatively small amount of resources. This is especially useful for VR applications, wherein such resources are already burdened.

Bottom line - give me a real-world object, and I'll email you a fully-fleshed 3d version of it in short order.

3D Printing

Over the past year, I have become the proud owner of two different styles of 3D printers. This has been an excellent way to leverage my 3D modeling skills into something "real world."

Since then, friends and family have come out of the woodwork to request small projects. I take every one as an opportunity to challenge myself and develop my skills.

To the left, you can see a good example of one such project. A friend of mine belongs to a church which has recently designed a 50-year coin. Taking just the picture on the top, I was able to painstakingly create a fully-detailed 3D model, ready for print.

The resulting physical prototype can be seen in the last frame, prior to sanding and finishing. Using my knowledge of 3D printers and associated materials and finishing techniques, I was able to create a wonderful emblem capable of being placed outside in all weather. It now sits proudly affixed to the back of his truck, and several of his fellow church members are interested in acquiring one for themselves.