About - Tom Russell

About me

I believe we can make the world a nicer place through the games we build and the stories we tell.

When it comes to gameplay, it’s all about the player experience, and making sure the player is having fun in the world we build together. For this reason, I’m very keen on building highly polished gameplay experiences with high performance and smooth gameplay.

Over the years, I’ve worked on various areas; character controls, camera systems, animation, AI, vehicles, physics, rendering, audio, UI, metagame and networking.

If you’d like to know more, please feel free to get in touch, I’m always happy to chat!

Languages

Python

Platforms

PlayStation Vita

Software

Visual Studio

DirectX 11

Jira

Unreal Engine

Testimonials

“It was a great pleasure working with Tom on Sackboy: A Big Adventure.
Whether it was collaborating on how certain mechanics can best be integrated into the levels, or on making camera system adjustments to empower Level Designers in creating smooth and varying gameplay experiences, Tom was always open and easy to approach.”

Mart van der Struijk Senior Level Designer – Sumo Digital Ltd

“I’ve always considered Tom one of the ‘go to’ guys on the team because of his ability to break apart and explain complex systems with ease. You don’t have to look any further than the exceptional camera system in Sackboy: A Big Adventure to see the quality of his work. It’s clear that he has a deep understanding and appreciation of the maths involved. He’s funny, friendly and in every way a pleasure to work with.”

Gareth MorrisSenior Programmer – Sumo Digital Ltd

“I’ve been lucky enough to work with Tom several times at Sumo and had the benefit of his dedication, thoughtfulness and player focused approach to development. I have always been able to count on his thoughtfulness and thoroughness to ensure we were always making good decisions and improvements to the player experience at almost every scale. On top of his considerable skill as a coder, he also has a good game design head on his shoulders and is a thoroughly nice person to work alongside.”

Bradley DaveyLead Game Designer – Sumo Digital Ltd

“Tom is an exceptional games programmer and it was always a joy to work with him. Whenever I knew he was working on a feature, I knew it was in good hands. He is incredibly approachable, always taking the time to explain things in a way that made sense to everyone, even for us art types. In short, Tom is a top-notch games programmer with a passion for his work, a great attitude and a genuine person.”

Anthony McloughlinPrincipal UI Artist – Sumo Digital Ltd

Education

BSc Computer Games Development
(1^st class honours)

Relevant Modules:

Computer Graphics (1^st): Advanced mathematics – linear algebra, shaders, lighting / shadow techniques, basic animation.
Emerging Tech for Games(1^st): Quaternions, animation systems, graphics optimizations, spatial partitioning, post-processing, linear-dynamics.
Games Development 1 (1^st): Architecture and middleware integration, AI: path-finding/game agents.
Advanced programming with C++ (1^st): OOP, UML, STL, containers, data structures/algorithms.
Games Development 2 (1^st): Entity systems, scripting, concurrency, resource management, tools development, advanced AI, production systems.
Object Oriented Methodologies (1^st): OO Concepts, class libraries, generic programming, STL, OO program architecture, design patterns, UML.

Final Project:

Deferred Lighting with Stereoscopic Rendering
(Duality Engine):
A framework designed for efficient real-time 3D graphics using DirectX11, supporting many dynamic lights with a flexible material system, and stereoscopic 3D.

Dissertation available here

Relevant Modules:

Physics – A Level
Fine Art – A Level
Computing – AS Level

Relevant Modules:

9 GCSE A-B Grades

Additional Info:

GCSE Mathematics awarded early
Studied AS-level Decision Maths

Want to learn more?

Please feel free to get in touch for more info, I’m always happy to share my experiences on previous projects.