
Portfolio — 1996–Present
Lead / Senior Environment Artist — Level Art
Twenty-nine years building game worlds — from Ubisoft's Flashback, to open-world sci-fi shooter Hawken, a 16km² survival adventure called Uayeb made entirely solo, and leading the environment art team on the HELIX platform (GTA RP like) with Unreal Engine 5.
Released Games Summary
Released Games as Lead/Senior Environment Artist - Level Artist
AA/AAA Video Games Productions Worked On
Studies
First 3D art studies in 1996 with 3D Studio;
3DS Max Certificate at Art House School, Dublin 2000;
Project management and leadership formations at Vivendi Universal Games, Dublin 2001;
Modeling and art for games formation at FuturePoly, Seattle 2014;
Also a lifelong musician — guitarist, drummer, singer and composer.
Core knowledge

Creating a coop/PvP survival adventure game around the Maya civilization in Unreal Engine 5.
Making open-world maps for the HELIX game platform in Unreal Engine 5, leading the Environment team and building level art on two big cities (LA and Miami) on a RP GTA like game.
Sole environment owner for 3 months: terrain with Errant Landscape, UE5 landscape sculpting, multi-layer materials, props, Speedtree, Megascans, full 3ds Max / Substance Painter / Photoshop pipeline.
Environments across 4 zones (caves, farms, crashed ships, coastline, factories) for a sci-fi open-world shooter in UE4. Reviewed team output, led recruitment, worked directly with the Art Director and Level Designers.
Testing the development tools for Art in Ubisoft Voyager Engine.
5–6 hour prototype built alone in CryEngine: modeling, texturing, level art, lighting, FX, game & level design, code, UI, music and sound.
16km² open-world survival/puzzle/FPS built alone in CryEngine, released on Steam January 2018. Story, art, code, UI, music, sound and marketing — end to end.
Led the environment team on Ubisoft's Flashback reboot for PS3/Xbox360 in Unreal Engine 3. Modeling, texturing, level composition, lighting, materials, FX.
Created half of the game's environments on PS3/Xbox360 in Phyre Engine.
Led environment team on DS/Wii titles in Jade Engine.
Environments on Wii titles in Jade Engine.
Led localization testing teams across 22 AAA productions, including Scarface, Half-Life, Diablo II, Homeworld 2 and Warcraft III.
Two years on a sci-fi shoot-'em-up: soundtrack, SFX and early 3D art.
Environment / Level Art
Quality Assurance



Megascan "Abandoned Apartment" scene with all lighting stripped and rebuilt from scratch — directional light, exponential height fog, HDRI backdrop, sky atmosphere, sky light and volumetric cloud, tuned for a warm day pass and a flickering-bulb night pass.
Night lighting on the HELIX Pacifica Miami city — neon signage, streetlights and moonlight across an Art Deco facade. Also made the set dressing and Salsero bar/hotel interior.
Night lighting on the Pacifica beach bar. Also made all the bar environment and set dressing.
Made some buildings and villas, beach bar, convention center, bar and hotels, all roads, level art, vegetation dressing, environment composition and set dressing.


House and pool modeling, level art, environment composition and set dressing.
Residential villas
Made villas with modular pieces, level art, environment composition and set dressing.
Industrial district
Made buildings, level art, environment composition and set dressing.
Made the building and parks, level art, environment composition and set dressing.
Made some buildings and villas, all roads, level art, vegetation dressing, environment composition and set dressing.




High & low poly modeling, sculpting, UV unwrapping, texture baking, materials, optimization, LODs and collisions — 3DS Max, Substance Painter, Photoshop, ZBrush.
Prop modeling and breakdown for Hawken Reborn.
Props modeling / reuse of Megascan assets changed with project materials, and integration for the Artistic Direction prototype.
I'm playing guitar since 1979 and composing music since 1986. I wrote and recorded two personal music albums available on Spotify and other music apps, as well as original soundtracks and made the sound design for my UAYEB game series.
Releases
Images
Videos
Sounds

Working with Francis has been a pleasure from day one, the moment I joined the team I felt welcomed and supported. Always had clear priorities and created solid plans of action. Always keen to help, give feedback, direction, anything needed. And always putting out fantastic work, taking the most difficult tasks and making it look easy. Couldn't have asked for a better environment lead on the project, and really hope we work together again in the future!
I worked with Francis during our time at Hypersonic Laboratories. It has been incredible working with him. His dedication to the project and it's vision is 2nd to none. Francis has worked tirelessly, through extreme project turbulence to deliver, time and time again. I have no doubts he'd make a fantastic asset to any team.
Francis is the kind of team player every art manager wants on his/her team. He's dedicated, thorough in his practices, a great mentor to the juniors on the team and does a first class job with everything thrown at him.
Francis was an absolute pleasure to work with, very patient and could never do enough to help you. I learned so much from him and my skills transformed as a 3D Environment Artist.
Francis is the kind of colleague everyone likes having—friendly, professional, engaging, and open to communication—but he is also a highly skilled artist and a passionate gamer with a critical eye and sound advice.
Francis is a key person in a production. He is a complete artist. His artistic and technical skills are excellent. I really appreciate to work with him.
Francis has extensive experience in the video game industry and has done a remarkable job creating futuristic environments. It was a pleasure to work with him.
A highly skilled professional with vast experience in many fields related to the videogame industry … a brilliant project lead with strong competence in project and resource management.
One of the most meticulous and creative guys I've ever had the pleasure of working with. His wide-ranging knowledge of game design, digital art, sound engineering and project planning makes him an ideal asset in any team.
I worked with Francis on many high profile games while working in Vivendi. I found him to be very professional and an absolute pleasure to work with. He never got stressed under pressure with tight deadlines and was always willing to help other departments to locate and solve issues that arose. His artistic abilities also impressed me and I always looked forward to seeing his 3D creations. He is a very valuable person to have in any company.
I really appreciated Francis as a colleague. Francis was always professional in everything he did. He also played a significant role in setting high standards in the QA department. Francis would be an asset to any team.
I worked with Francis over a period of 4 years in Vivendi, and always found him to be an very organised, competent and approchable collegue with a wide-ranging knowledge of many applications.
During my tenure at Vivendi Universal Games I reported directly to Francis Courchinoux. I found Francis a pleasure to work for. He had a keen eye for detail and was calm and collected under pressure. His organisational skills were an important factor for me and I was able to take some of that with me to my next job.
Francis is a detail-oriented manager without losing sight of the strategic objective.
I worked alongside Francis for quite some time at Vivendi Universal Games and I always found Francis to be an excellent QA lead. During my time I worked on many titles with myself as the Lead graphic artist and Francis as Lead QA. Francis was always willing to help out when I needed a little assistance on bugs. He was always well informed and fully aware of what his junior QA testers were doing so that he was really the only point of contact I needed. Working with Francis was always a pleasure, since he is a great guy as well as a hard worker.
I watched Fancis' 3d skills develop in the time he was with Vivendi Games. I couldn't believe how quickly he learnt the art of 3d! He is an amazing talent!!
I worked with Francis on several games during my time at Vivendi. His high level of understanding of the game localisation processes and his QA skills made him an outstanding QA lead. He is fun to work with and he has a great personality. I would not hesitate recommending him to anyone.
Francis was very organised and dedicated team lead. He had strong leadership qualities and excelled at building high performance teams. I found Francis to be a good communicator and motivator during my time in his team.
Francis was my lead for a large project during my time in Vivendi as a localisation games tester. His main qualities as a lead remain on his management and social skills as well as a highly methodical coordination of tasks; always under a close eye.
Francis was an outstanding QA lead in Vivendi Universal Games. He was focused on games, professional in his work, and he was always calm and resourceful, even when under pressure. His artistic and organizational abilities make him a great asset to the games industry.
I worked with Francis for 3 years in a Game project development group. I really appreciated him as well in terms of human relationship as in terms of his professionalism. Francis was in charge of Music & SFX and performed several great original pieces, mixing Electric Guitar and Keyboards at a time where it was not usual. As a Sound Effect Designer He often amazed me, and managed to give a specific sound atmosphere to the game. I'll be pleased to work with him again, as he is tireless when he starts a project or simply a task.
Francis has always demonstrated an undestructable motivation in his work and group working relationships. He is undoubtly a very talented musician but has also been constantly interested in video games and graphics. He has certainly progressed in that area as well and shows a professional attitude to his work and his colleagues. A great guy to know and work with.