I build the bridge between art and engineering — real-time rendering, shader systems, and the pipelines that let art teams move fast without fighting the tech.
Nine years across indie and AAA, from Roll7's hand-drawn worlds to Larian's character tech on Baldur's Gate 3. I lead small tech-art teams, own the look-dev-to-engine pipeline, and write the tools that turn one-off hacks into repeatable craft. Happiest where a shader graph, a Python tool and a deadline meet.
Featured work View portfolio
Shipped · 2023
Baldur's Gate 3 — Character Tech
Larian Studios
Reel · 4:12
Procedural City Shader — breakdown
Houdini · HLSL
Repo · ★ 540
ue5-shader-utils
HLSL · C++
What people say
DR
"Maya turned our tech-art pipeline from tribal knowledge into a system the whole team trusts. Rare blend of artist's eye and engineer's discipline."
Daniel Reyes · Art Director, Cloud Chamber
SK
"Her character shader stack shipped in Baldur's Gate 3 and is still the reference other teams copy. Calm under pressure, generous with knowledge."
Sofia Krause · Lead Character Artist, Larian
Career history Tap a role to expand · skills link to your tree
CC
Tech Art Lead
Cloud Chamber (2K)London · Hybrid
2023 — Present
2 yr 5 mo
Leading tech art on an unannounced AAA title
- Built a procedural material library in Houdini + UE5 that cut set-dressing time 40% across the environment team.
- Established a shader-review pipeline and authoring standards now used studio-wide; halved look-dev iteration cycles.
- Mentor and line-manage a team of 6 technical artists across rendering, tools and pipeline.
Skills used
Unreal Engine 5
HLSL
Houdini
Python
Perforce
LS
Senior Technical Artist
Larian StudiosRemote
2020 — 2023
3 yr 2 mo
- Authored the character shader stack (skin, hair, cloth) shipped in Baldur's Gate 3 — still the studio reference.
- Optimised GPU skinning and LOD shading, recovering ~25% frame budget on crowd scenes.
- Wrote Python look-dev tools bridging Substance → Divinity Engine, removing a manual export step entirely.
Titles
Baldur's Gate 3
Skills used
HLSL / Shaders
Substance 3D
Python
Proprietary engine
MM
Technical Artist
Media MoleculeGuildford
2017 — 2020
3 yr
- Built in-engine creation tools and shader presets for Dreams' user-generated content system.
- Prototyped a volumetric cloud system used in marketing captures and shipped scenes.
Titles
Dreams
Skills used
GLSL
C++
Maya
Houdini
R7
Junior 3D Artist
Roll7London
2015 — 2017
2 yr 1 mo
- Modelled and textured environment assets for a hand-stylised skate title; first taste of shader work that set the career direction.
- Owned the Unity material library and built a batch-export tool that became the studio standard.
Skills used
Blender
Substance 3D
Unity
Skill tree Proficiency · years · where it was used
Real-time rendering
Shader authoring (HLSL/GLSL)
9 yrs
Larian · Cloud Chamber
Lighting & post FX
8 yrs
Media Molecule
GPU optimization
7 yrs
Larian
Material systems
9 yrs
Cloud Chamber
Engines
Unreal Engine 5
5 yrs
Cloud Chamber
Unity
6 yrs
Roll7
Proprietary (Divinity)
3 yrs
Larian
DCC & content
Houdini
7 yrs
Cloud Chamber
Maya
8 yrs
Media Molecule
Blender
6 yrs
Roll7
Substance 3D
8 yrs
Larian
Programming & tools
Python
8 yrs
All studios
C++
6 yrs
Media Molecule
PyQt tooling
6 yrs
Cloud Chamber
Perforce / Git
9 yrs
All studios
Shipped
Baldur's Gate 3
Larian · 2023RPG
Authored skin, hair & cloth shader stack — studio reference.
Reel
4:12
Procedural City Shader — breakdown
Houdini · HLSL
Full breakdown of a tiling city material system with runtime variation.
Reel
2:48
Volumetric Cloud System
UE5 · HLSL
Raymarched clouds with art-directable density and lighting.
Shipped
Dreams
Media Molecule · 2020
In-engine creation tools and shader presets for UGC.
Study
Stylised Water Study
Real-time · GLSL
Gerstner waves + foam masks, fully art-directable.
Pack
Substance Material Pack
40 materials
Production-ready PBR set with smart-material presets.
Shipped
OlliOlli World era
Roll7 · 2017
Environment art and the studio's Unity material library.
Case study
Shader Review Pipeline
Cloud Chamber
How a review gate halved look-dev iteration across teams.
Case study
Procedural Set-Dressing
Houdini · UE5
The material library that cut set-dressing time 40%.
github.com/mayaokonkwo
Open on GitHub
1,284 contributions in the last year
Less More
ue5-shader-utils
A library of production HLSL shader functions and material nodes for Unreal Engine 5 — triplanar, parallax, detail blending.
HLSL54071
houdini-asset-validator
CI-friendly validation for Houdini digital assets — naming, scale, UV and material checks before they hit the pipeline.
Python31238
pyqt-pipeline-toolkit
Reusable PyQt widgets and patterns for building DCC tools that artists actually want to use.
Python12822
substance-batch-exporter
Headless batch export for Substance 3D — texture sets to engine-ready maps with per-project presets.
Python7614