Lighting Artist

Tomas Lidström's Portfolio

Resume/CV

Tomas Lidström

 

  • Mail: iam@tomaslidstrom.com
  • Skype: grin_tomas
  • Phone: +46 070-897 60 80
  • Location: Uppsala, Sweden
  • Nationality: Swedish
  • Languages: Swedish, English

 

Summary:

My name is Tomas Lidström and I am a professional, award-winning Lighting Artist. My primary skills are lighting, post-processing and effects. I also skilled and experienced with high and low polygon modelling and texturing. I specialize in the Unreal engine and I am adept in its pipeline and editor, but I jump at the opportunity to learn new tools.

I am able to plan my work and deliver products to set dates. I am an effective communicator and problem solver, whilst keeping my focus on the efficient achievement of deadlines that result in the most complete product possible. I take great pride in being a team player and easy to work with.

Available for freelance/contract work.

 

Released titles:

   

 

 

Software knowledge:

  • Maya
  • Photoshop
  • Substance Designer
  • Unreal engine 2, 3, 4
  • Idtech5, Idtech6

Skills and Qualities

  • Highly experienced at creating lighting and post-processing to fit specific artistic and gameplay needs
  • Highly experienced in taking ownership of environments to push them to final polish through tweaking colors and composition
  • Experienced optimizing models and whole scenes for current generation consoles
  • Highly experienced with creating atmospheric effects through shaders and particle effects
  • Highly experienced in optimizing shaders, effects and lighting for current generation consoles
  • Highly experienced producing environments and environmental assets
  • Experienced in Kismet and Matinee (Unreal Engine)
  • Good communication and documentation skills through speech, writing and drawing
  • Strong critical thinking and analytical skills

 

Achievements:

  • Grand Prize winner of Make Something Unreal Contest 2010
  • Winner of multiple prizes throughout Make Something Unreal Contest, including Best Art and Best Art in Level

 

Experience:

  • Bad Yolk Games
    January 2018 – present
    Senior Artist

    Games:
    –

  • MachineGames
    June 2012 – January 2018
    Senior Lighting artist

    Games:
    Wolfenstein: The New Order
    Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
    DOOM
    Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus
  • People Can Fly / Epic Games
    October 2010 – May 2012
    Lighting artist

    Games:
    Bulletstorm
    Gears of War 3
    Gears of War: JudgementI was the only Lighting Artist working at People Can Fly. My duties involved achieving visual and gameplay goals by creating lighting composition, post-processing and environment effects. During pre-production I worked closely with the art director developing Color scripts and assembling reference photos and during production I took full ownership of the Lighting in the levels. I was also tasked with balancing textures and creating new shaders to assure image clarity and fidelity. I was involved all throughout the development of the levels, providing feedback to level designers and running support for the environment artists, and I was responsible for the final polish pass of the environments.I also worked closely with the engine team, developing new rendering features and altering existing ones to further enhance the visuals and style of the projects.Further more, I was heavily involved in creating promotional material such as trailers and still images.
  • Rebellion
    October 2009 – October 2010
    Lighting artist

    Games:
    Alien Versus Predator
    Never DeadI was one of three lighting artists at Rebellion within the main office in Oxford. I worked together with environment artists, level designers and programmers to create a visually pleasing and technically stable performance. On a daily basis, I worked with lighting composition and optimization, as well as tweaking shaders and texture maps to tie the environments together. My duties also involved making particle effects and other environment effects. We developed games for PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 and it was up to me to compose, test and optimize the levels I worked on for each system. I also attended meetings with programmers and producers to specify engine development in terms of lighting and FX solutions. On my own initiative, I also conducted Research & Development in work flow and new technical solutions and posted my findings on the internal Wikipedia.
  • The Haunted
    Spring and summer of 2009
    Environment artist, Lighting artistAn Unreal Tournament 3 Mod. Winner of the Grand Prize in Make Something Unreal contest. It was up to me to deliver a technically sound and visually pleasing lighting set up, complete with effects and post-processing. My hands were free in regards to composition and how I set it up technically, but it was a close collaboration with everyone in the team with constant feedback from regular play sessions. I lit all the maps in the project and I also created complementary environment art for some of the environments such as vegetation, backdrop art and assets used in the gameplay area. We entered Make Something Unreal contest and we won the Grand Prize consisting of an Unreal engine 3 license and $50,000 in the 2009/2010 edition, as well as several awards during the previous phases of the contest.
  • Grin
    June 2008 – June 2009
    Environment Artist

    Games:
    Wanted: Weapons of Fate (April, 2009)
    Terminator: Salvation (May, 2009)
    Lead & Gold (Fatshark)I worked on environment art, producing modular assets such as floor, ceiling and wall tiles as well as complete buildings with both exterior and interior sections. My duties involved making both high polygon models as well as the in-game asset, modelling and texturing these assets to meet artistic and technical specifications, and finally exporting them to the in-house engine, Diesel. I also created shaders for all the assets I produced and made sure they fit within the style of the overall environment. The environment art team that I worked with ranged from five to fifteen other artists depending on the project.

 

  • Lockpick entertainment
    January, 2008- May, 2008
    Artist

    Games:
    Dreamlords: the Reawakening
    Final year university project.

Education:

  • Prins Wilhelms Gymnasium 1999-2003
    Samhälle inrkt.Media.

 

  • University of Skövde 2005-2008
    Game development, Graphics

References: 

Available upon request.

 

Recommendations:


Waylon Brinck, Art Director, Epic Poland / People Can Fly.
July 17, 2012
“Tomas is a solid lighting artist, with a great eye for aesthetics but also the technical know-how to get the job done. He did a great job of establishing the look and feel of our last project together, followed feedback well, and brought his own vision to the project. Tomas also went above and beyond his role in a few ways – for instance, he worked directly with the engineering team to develop some new rendering features, both in testing the feature and recommending improvements to the look and usability. He also doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty if that’s what it takes to get the job done – if needed he’ll modify VFX, atmosphere, meshing, textures, materials, and even animation if it can make the scene better. Overall Tomas is a great artist to work with and a fast learner, and I’d be happy to work with him again!”

 

Erik Gloersen, Studio Director, Epic Poland / People Can Fly
November 21, 2011
”Tomas is a very talented and dedicated artist. His knowledge of the UE3 lighting tech is amazing! He is a real resource when it comes to making the environments look their best. Lighting is such a major differentiator when it comes to adding final polish to a scene and Tomas is a master in making the worlds we create come alive. 

Tomas may be a lighting specialist, but he can also do meshing and create the environment art assets from scratch, which is a huge plus since he can go in and fix an environment if it is not catching the light properly, or if it needs an asset that we don’t have in the game. 

Finally, Tomas is a great team member and an awesome guy to work with.” 

 

Tor Frick, Artist, Epic Poland / People Can Fly.
September 01, 2011
“I often worked closely with Tomas during my time at PCF. Tomas is a great teamworker who never hesitates to do the job neccesary to achieve the best result possible, even if it means reworking things, or a tougher task for himself. He is easy to work with and is always open to suggestions, and is a steady source of constructive criticism. His background as an environment artist gives him another edge when it comes to communicating and dealing with artists. He is a great lighting artist and is constantly improving his work and surprises me by how far he can push an environment.”

 

Arvid Nilsson, Lead Artist, Grin.
July 10, 2009
“I’ve worked with Tomas during Wanted, Terminator Salvation and another unannounced project and he’s been an excellent asset to the team during these projects. Always positive, very productive and highly talented in his field. I have watched him grow as an artist really fast and it’s a great misfortune he’s not working here any more. I can strongly recommend him for any project requiring great environmental artists and superb colleagues.”


Henrik Öquist, Lead Effect Artist, Grin.
July 10, 2009
“I had the pleasure of working with Tomas at Grin and it was a really enjoyable experience. Tomas is a hard-working and ambitious artist with a rich set of tools at his disposal. He is easy to communicate with and is always interested in giving and receiving feedback, making him a good contribution to any team. He knows his way around several major game engines and is always eager to expand his skillset in disciplines such as lighting, post effects and visual effects apart from his ”native” discipline as an environmental modelling and texture artist in which he excels. He has great humor and a fantastically positive spirit. He is a delight to work with and comes highly recommended from me. This young guy has a really bright future in front of him.”