Tabula Rasa : Illumination - James

Hometown
Houston, TX

Favorite games
Fallout, Diablo, Quake, Ultima

Favorite books
Ender's Game, Elric: Song of the Black Sword

Favorite movies
Braveheart, Blade Runner, The Matrix

Favorite websites
Blue's News, Voodoo Extreme

Favorite bands or songs
311, Tool

Previous projects
Unreal 2, The Wheel of Time

Describe your job
I'm a worldbuilder/ level designer on Tabula Rasa. I'm involved in most aspects of developing scenarios and missions for the game- from art to gameplay scripting and level layouts.

How did you get into the industry?
While in college, I began creating levels for Doom and Quake. I began to devote more and more time to this until I was designing levels with most of my time. One of my maps (Abandon all Hope, a Quake 2 single player level) won a contest, which lead to a job offer by a company in Houston called Revenant. I readily accepted and put my studies on hold. While working with the guys at Revenant, I began learning 3DStudio and many of the other tools I use today, as well as many of the cultural and publishing aspects of the industry. About 6 months later, I left Revenant for a Level Design position at Legend Entertainment, who were working on a title I was quite interested in, the Wheel of Time. There I worked on The Wheel of Time and Unreal 2 for about 5 years, before joining the Tabula Rasa team here at NC Austin.