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3D rendering, animation, and digital painting What I contributed to the featured artwork Photos of the San Francisco Bay Area Work experience and contact information

Brian Michael Nestor

Senior Environment Artist  |  World Builder  |  Technical Look Development
San Francisco, CA  |  bnestor@consoleartist.com  |  www.consoleartist.com

Professional Summary

Environment-focused production artist with a proven track record delivering immersive worlds for AAA franchises including Star Wars, Battlefield, The Sims, and Tomb Raider. Knowledgable in bridging the gap between artistic vision and engineering constraints through shader development, performance profiling, and cross-discipline pipeline collaboration. Successfully guided environment teams through complex hardware transitions, from legacy consoles to cutting-edge VR.

Core Skills

Expertise: World Building, 3D Content Creation, Mentorship, Design and Engineer Collaboration, Look Development, Optimization.

Technical: Shader Development, Level Streaming & World Partitioning Management, World Performance Profiling (RenderDoc, UE Stats, OVR Metrics), Photogrammetry.

Software: Unreal Engine, Maya, ZBrush, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Substance Suite, Reality Capture, Perforce.

Professional Experience

Meta (Sanzaru Games) | San Mateo, CA 11/2021 – 03/2026
Senior Environment Artist
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Asgard’s Wrath 2 (Quest VR): Delivered high-fidelity environments from designer blockout to final. Spearheaded look development and visual upgrades for the Quest 3, implementing enhanced PBR materials and texture sets.
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Unannounced Title (Quest VR): Contributed to a large-scale open-world environment including look development, layout, set dressing, asset creation, shader graphs, and lighting.
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Optimization: Owned frame-rate stability for VR scenes; balancing draw calls, primitive counts, and texture memory to meet strict 72/90Hz targets.
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Pipeline Collaboration: Collaborated with art leads and engineers on tool improvements, shader graphs, instancing strategies, lighting workflows, and streaming evaluation.
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General Team Support: Assisted coworkers with onboarding, troubleshooting, and best practices. Created polished sizzle reels for team meetings and high-level director reviews.
Electronic Arts (Maxis) | Redwood City, CA 11/2017 – 10/2021
Senior Environment Artist
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The Sims 4 (PC): Primary environment owner for six expansion packs. Managed the full level creation cycle including blockout, terrain painting, lighting, set dressing, and optimization.
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Pipeline Collaboration: Partnered with the engineering team to test and refine internal world-building tools, reducing iteration time and pain points for the environment team. Overhauled tools documentation.
Electronic Arts (Visceral) | Redwood City, CA 05/2013 – 11/2017
Senior Environment Artist
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Project Ragtag / Star Wars (Console): Primary look dev artist for desert biome. Conducted multi-state photogrammetry expeditions and co-developed an end-to-end photogrammetry pipeline (RealityCapture to Substance Designer), producing a comprehensive library of surface and rock assets. Prototyped shaders and environment visual targets.
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Battlefield Hardline (PC/Console): Delivered finalized level art for the mainline game and DLC expansions. Served as primary performance owner for multiplayer maps utilizing PIX, GPAD, and Frostbite Engine profiling tools. Distributed optimization tasks to the environment team.
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Battlefield 4 (PC/Console): Provided environmental modeling, set dressing, optimization, and bug fixing.
Lucasfilm Ltd. (LucasArts) | San Francisco, CA 11/2011 – 04/2013
Senior Environment Artist
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Unannounced Title (Console): Delivered finalized levels from designer blockout for a multi-platform first person shooter.
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Optimization: Utilized Microsoft PIX and UE Stats to evaluate and optimize assets and worlds.
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Mentorship: Participated in the Jedi Academy internship program, mentored a student on best practices and art pipelines.
Square Enix (Crystal Dynamics) | Redwood City, CA 01/2011 – 11/2011
Senior Technical Artist
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Tomb Raider (Console): Conducted level audits and frame-rate analysis using Microsoft PIX. Collaborated with rendering engineers to maintained and improve the capabilities of the material editor and author custom environmental effects.
Lucasfilm Ltd. (LucasArts) | San Francisco, CA 02/2006 – 11/2010
Senior Environment Artist
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The Force Unleashed I & II + DLC (Console): World building, lighting, and asset creation. Authored shader graphs and partnered with engineers to test and improve internal tools.

Additional Experience

Sony Online Entertainment | 08/2005 – 02/2006 | Senior Environment Artist | Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom
Midway Home Entertainment | 08/2003 – 08/2005 | Lead Environment Artist | Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows
The 3DO Company | 06/2000 – 06/2003 | Environment Artist | High Heat MLB 2002-2004, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Education

Bachelor of Arts, Computer and Video Imaging
University of Silicon Valley, San Jose, CA