Derek Glennon

Technical Artist

Technical Art Reel - 2023

I’m a Technical Artist interested in combining my background in computational astrophysics research with an artistic vision to explore physically based rendering techniques, stylized visual effect creation through graphics shader development, and modern ray tracing technologies.

I am also passionate about improving the lives of others. Everything from building homes with Habitat for Humanity to writing a script to save someone a few seconds in their workflow is exciting to me!

Areas of Interest

Real-Time Visual Effect Creation

In my eyes, visual effects have always been the perfect blend of science and art. They are the perfect blend of my passions!

Since June 2020 I have been working with the FX team at 343 Industries to help create the sci-fi FX for Halo Infinite. I develop HLSL shaders and C++ engine features that allow for more flexibility when creating our FX. In my free time I like to experiment with my own FX creations in the Unreal Engine. I have also completed a Computer Graphics Master Academy (CGMA) course titled “FX For Games” that allowed me to practice my visual effect work in Unreal. In that course, I created effects tied to specific character animations, created a burning barrel effect, and created a series of effects for an already existing 3D environment. More displays of my work can be found in the Gallery.

Unreal Engine 4 Fire Effect — Unreal Engine Fire Effect

Lighting Models

I’m interested in exploring how light is rendered in computer graphics through both surface rendering and volumetric rendering. I have integrated numerous different types of bidirectional reflectance distribution functions (BRDFs) and subsurface scattering models. I am particularly interested in Penner’s Pre-Integrated Subsurface Scattering (2011) and have developed my own interface for numerically integrating the diffusion profile for this method.

Ray Tracing

Ray Tracing has been an incredible field to explore. It helped blend my mathematics and physics background with my desire to create beautiful 3D environments and effects. Learning the math and algorithms behind this technology is truly inspiring. I created the gifs shown below by following David Kuri’s GPU Ray Tracing in Unity tutorial series. I plan to integrate subsurface scattering into my ray tracing model to help illustrate more organic materials.

Shipped Products

Halo Infinite

I worked as an FX Technical Artist on Halo Infinite starting in June 2020 and continue to help support the live product to this day.

Collaborate daily with the FX art team, graphics engineering team, and tools engineering team to ensure clear communication across the studio.
Develop tools to improve the FX artist's workflow such as new HLSL shader graph nodes and additional C++ engine functionality.
Perform large scale content changes using scripts developed in Python, C\#, and C++.
Educate artists on best practices for shader node graph authoring and implementing content hookups to maintain consistency across the project.
Author and iterate on shaders in HLSL while collecting feedback from artists to ensure the product matches expectations.
Investigate graphical bugs through code breakpoints/PIX captures, solve them through peer-reviewed changes to an existing codebase, and effectively communicate these changes to the FX art team.
Identify high-cost FX assets and implement solutions to keep content within performance budgets on multiple platforms.
Implemented the ability for Forge FX Assets to scale and also added Forge FX Damage/Audio Toggles. A video I made illustrating my work was showcased during our Holiday Community Livestream on Twitch: Link

Willy Wonka Everlasting Gobstopper

I worked as a Technical Artist on this video slot machine product at Scientific Games. Throughout the course of this project I was responsible for a large variety of tasks:

Created optimized graphics shaders for the game’s 3D assets and character models.
Implemented choreography and programmatic animation with the engineering team.
Defined the lighting model used throughout the game with direction from the art team.
Coordinated character animation and choreography with audio cues while working closely with the sound department.
Investigated, and solved, coding bugs and optimization concerns reported by quality assurance.

Personal Projects

Ludum Dare 54 : You Can’t Take it (All) With You - Unreal Engine 5

Theme - Limited Space

Date - 9/29/2023 - 10/2/2023

Link - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/you-cant-take-it-all-with-you

I participated in the 72 hour version of Ludum Dare 54, in which I created an entire game within that time frame. The game is a point-and-click narrative game about the player choosing what to take with them into their next reincarnation. They can take 1-2 versions of their past lives, or a fun hat! (Or both!) . I used the jam to mostly learn Blender and explore areas of Unreal Engine 5 I hadn’t explored yet. I was able to create a point and click interface along with a dialogue system that could trigger events.

Overall, it was a great learning experience!

More gifs can be seen here

Management Sim - Unreal Engine 5

I have been learning more about the Unreal Engine in my free time. I used the Top Down Project as a starting point for a management sim type game where you control different types of workers to gather resources from nodes.

To the right you can find a video of my progress and you can read more about the specifics here

Publications

C. Markakis, M. O’Boyle, D. Glennon, K. Tran, P. Brubeck, R. Haas, H.-Y. Schive, K. Uryu. Time-symmetry, symplecticity and stability of Euler-Maclaurin and Lanczos-Dyche integration. To be submitted to J. Comp. Phys. [arXiv:1901.09967](2019)

**Relative Error of Numerical Energy for various Finite Difference Methods solving the Advection Equation**

I investigated stability, symplecticity and energy-preserving properties of the Lanczos-Dyche formula for numerically evolving partial differential equations as a part of my numerical analysis research at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).

E. A. Huerta, C. J. Moore, P. Kumar, D. George, A. J. K. Chua, R. Haas, E. Wessel, D. Johnson, D. Glennon, A. Rebei, A. M. Holgado, J. R. Gair, H. Pfeiffer Eccentric, nonspinning, inspiral, Gaussian-process merger approximant for the detection and characterization of eccentric binary black hole mergers. Submitted to Phys. Rev. D [arXiv:1711.06276](2017).

**Richardson Extrapolation calculations to estimate the phase error in numerical relativity simulations of binary black hole mergers**

I conducted a series of waveform error analysis calculations on a large catalog of numerical relativity simulations, as well as conducted some of the simulations myself on the Blue Waters Supercomputer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).