Crystal Dynamics | Square Enix | Marvel

The Avengers Project

Senior Designer

D E R E K W A R N E R

Crystal Dynamics | Square Enix

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Senior Designer

D E R E K W A R N E R

Red 5 Studios

Firefall

Senior Level Designer

D E R E K W A R N E R

Airtight Games | Square Enix

Murdered: Soul Suspect

Senior Game Designer

D E R E K W A R N E R

Zipper Interactive | Sony Computer Entertainment of America

SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy Seals

Senior Level Designer

D E R E K W A R N E R

Zipper Interactive | Sony Computer Entertainment of America

MAG

Senior Level Designer

D E R E K W A R N E R

Ubisoft Montreal

Rainbow Six: Vegas

Level Designer

D E R E K W A R N E R

About

Derek Warner

Senior Designer

I am a senior level designer with 17 years of experience in the game industry. I am currently working on an Drifters at Blind Squirrel Games as Senior Level Designer. Previously, I was working on the Avengers Project at Crystal Dynamics.

In my 17 years in the game industry I have shipped eight titles, including Rainbow Six: Vegas, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, MAG, SOCOM 4, SOCOM: Combined Assault, Unit 13, Murdered: Soul Suspect, and Firefall. I have experience on all major game consoles and PC development.

My specialties include design document creation, technical specification design, level design and creation, enhanced blockout and level design creation and content creation using major 3rd party and internal development tools.

I am looking for new opportunities to use my knowledge, skills, and abilities to create and design the biggest titles in the industry.

Download Resume [PDF Format]

Finished Projects

SHIPPED TITLES

16 Years of Creating Entertainment

Design Planning

PAPER MAPS AND BLOCKOUTS

A New Way of Creating

I use SketchUp for papermaps in my designs at a few of the latest companies I have worked for. This way of creating layouts for a game has many values and I bring that value to the companies that I work for.

The paper map is to scale. When our paper designs do not live up to the scale and size the designer or artists have in their head it can cause problems. With this process I can set the scale to the scale of the game and design the map to fit any game. I usually import assets from the game to better show the scale of what I’m building.
Easy to read. Easy to share. These designs are easily shared across the design team, in a template form in which all designers can build their paper maps with the same assets and icons as the rest of the team. This leads to easy readability from all team members and consistency across the project.
Easy to make changes. Making changes to a layout done in Photoshop for example can be more work then it needs to be. Making changes using sketchup has proven to be quite easier, especially when most changes are for scale or size of areas for combat or cinematics.
The blockout is done. This is a great reason I like to design this way. Once my paper map is complete I can import the file into the game engine, in which I have done this with many proprietary and commercial game engines.