Tomoya Miwata

Asset optimization and bug fixes on a stylized open world game in Unreal Engine. Profiled maps using Unreal Insight and stat commands; documented best practices for artists for UE5 features such as Nanite, Virtual Shadow Maps, Lumen and World Partition. Refactored Master Material and Material Instance hierarchy to minimize GPU cost for Nanite. Created a realistic balloon system with Niagara by integrating a custom collision and string constraints. Optimized a foliage pipeline in PCG using Runtime Virtual Textures for landscape height and layer data. Automated asset conversion pipelines for optimization using Python and Editor Utility Blueprints.

Gameplay VFX on a horror-style AA game in Unity. Implemented various visual effects including disintegration, metal sparks, smoke, and destruction. Created trim sheet textures for mesh assets in Blender to reduce texture streaming costs. Minimized overdrawing by balancing transparent and masked materials based on visual priority. Optimized shaders by baking complex math into textures using Houdini and TouchDesigner. Created destruction assets in Houdini and integrated them into a particle system, reassembling them using exported position data.

VFX systems and optimization on mobile applications. Replaced Unreal Engine's native collision system with a custom C++ solution to improve user control and reduce the number of calculations on mobile. Saved 3 ms on GPU by replacing vector field fluid effects with simple noise-based particles. Environment tools and optimization when porting project from PC to console. Procedural grass using multi-buffer shaders, enabling each blade to respond to audio. Contributed to landscape generation using real-world geographical data in Houdini. Reduced memory usage by storing VFX spawn data in side vertex colors instead of separate textures.