OVERVIEW

Over the past few years, I was often the sole shader support at Turn 10 Studios—a significant responsibility, especially as someone fresh out of college. While the pressure was intense, it offered invaluable opportunities for growth and helped shape me into the developer I am today. I’m deeply grateful for the trust the studio placed in me and the support I received throughout the journey.

SHADER WORKFLOW

Following the release of Forza Motorsport, I was tasked with developing a new shader workflow tailored to modern hardware and ray tracing requirements. As part of this initiative, I collaborated with other Xbox first-party studios—including HALO Studios and Activision Research—and reviewed technical documentation from The Coalition and id Tech teams.

A key discussion across studios centered around the choice between HLSL-based shaders and node-based graph systems. Based on these insights, I designed a workflow aligned with our studio’s needs, which received approval from both engineering and art teams.

Here is the document breakdown:

DESIGN DOCUMENT

MAIN SHADER DESIGN

SHADER PERFORMANCE

NAMING AND DIRECTORY

ARTIST WORKFLOW

If you do not like to read, here is the MS paint explanation :

SHADER BREAKDOWN

These are the shader breakdown to explain the key features and thought process for them.

ROAD SHADER

RETROREFLECTIVE

RIVER SHADER

AUTUMN SHADER

SHADER TOY

The Shader Toy adds a fun and creative way to experiment with shaders, while also enhancing the visual appeal of the website. The embedded version stop working, changed to links.

Tweaking the visual of MonterMan's awesome grass, Press A to see A/B of Transmissive on/off, Press S to see A/B of Spec on/off, Press D to see A/B of MonterMan's grass and my tweak

Having fun spilt the light.

PROUD SHADER MOMENTS

Here are some proud moments I can share since they are all released to the game.

E3 Show Case Shader Support

I worked with Sarah Smith for the trees and Tony Cheung for the river. Four weeks before the show case, we only have green tree and the river was a blue placeholder.