ViewTube

In just less than an hour!

I will be live here! with Gregory Robb and Jacob Norris from Sierra Division to talk about materials and how we can approach them for real-time productions and games!

If you have any questions I will try to answer them live!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw-Ws...

It's been a busy couple of weeks!

I'm excited to officially be joining Sierra Division as a Material Art Mentor, and to kick things off we're hosting an AMA this Tuesday (8/11) at 9:00 AM PDT in the Sierra Division Discord and also on a collaborative Livestream here on YouTube. If you have questions about Material Art, shaders, optimization, portfolios, breaking into the industry, or the mentorship itself, come by and ask away!

🔹 Join the Sierra Division Discord:
https://discord.com/invite/TMXYAmbYVv

🔹 AMA Channel:
https://discord.com/channels/12371366...

I also had the opportunity to collaborate with the Dinusty Empire community during DinCon, where they are hosting panels and discussions as a remote GDC-like event. At DinCon I gave a talk on Material Layering and Optimization. There were a lot of great discussions and questions around the technical tradeoffs of Material Layering, and I plan to turn that topic into a more concise YouTube video in the future so it's easier to digest.

📺 Watch the DinCon talk here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exAny...

And here is the upcoming AMA livestream, you can watch Tuesday (8/11) at 9:00 AM PDT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw-Ws...

Looking forward to seeing everyone at the AMA and answering your questions!

Hey Everyone!

I hope your summer is going well and you all are staying cool!

I’m hard at work on my next set of videos, but I wanted to post about an exciting event I will be attending. Dinusty Empire the online community has been hard at work on setting up a few different panels, talks and workshops throughout this month and next month. 

And I’m excited to announce that I’ll  be giving a talk this **Thursday 7/30 at DinCon Digital** on DiNusty Empire  Twitch! 12:00pm PST

Over the past several years, I've spent a lot of time creating materials and shaders for AAA games, while also teaching artists how to build workflows that are both scalable and production-ready. For this talk, I wanted to focus on one of the techniques that has had the biggest impact on the way I build materials: **Material Layering**, or what I like to call **Surface Stacking**.

Rather than thinking of materials as individual assets, I'll be breaking down a methodology for building reusable surface libraries that can be layered together to create everything from simple tileable materials to complex, production-ready surfaces. The goal is to make materials more modular, easier to iterate on, and much more scalable for large projects.

I'll also be doing a live demonstration, showing how these layered workflows come together inside the engine and discussing the practical decisions that go into designing a flexible material system.

Whether you're an environment artist, material artist, technical artist, or just interested in improving your material workflows, I hope you'll find something useful to take away.

📅 **Thursday July 30th**
📺 **Live on Twitch:** [https://lnkd.in/gEmS_pEp)

I'd love to see you there, and I'll be around afterward to answer questions during the Q&A.

ALSO! It will officially posted soon! 

I'm excited to announce that I'll be joining Sierra Division Academy as a Material Art Mentor!

One of the biggest reasons I wanted to join Sierra Division is because they've built an incredible mentorship infrastructure alongside a welcoming community of artists. Their mentorships are designed to provide personalized, one-on-one guidance from active AAA professionals, and they also offer flexible payment plans, making mentorship much more accessible instead of requiring one large upfront payment.

Joining Sierra Division doesn't mean the learning content on my YouTube channel is slowing down. If anything, it's another way for me to continue teaching. YouTube will always be where I can share free knowledge with everyone, while mentorship gives me the opportunity to work directly with artists, dive deeper into their goals, and help them grow in a much more personal way.

My mentorship page isn't live just yet, but if you're interested in working with me, you can learn more about the academy here:

https://academy.sierradivision.com/me...

If you'd like to secure a spot before my page goes live, feel free to reach out to Gregory Robb, our Academy Director, at gregory@sierradivision.com.

I'm really looking forward to meeting a new community of artists and helping wherever I can. Thanks to everyone who's supported my educational journey so far

I can't wait to see where this next chapter takes us!

Hey everyone!
Hope the first half of the year has been good so far! 

The last few weeks I've posted two videos in my UE5 Lighting series, covering Lighting Fundamentals and Lumen. The final video on Baked Lighting is currently in the works and should be out soon.

First off, thanks to everyone who's watched the videos, left comments, shared them around, or subscribed to the channel. It's been awesome seeing the discussions and hearing what topics you'd like me to cover next.

As I continue building out the channel, I've been thinking about YouTube Memberships and wanted to get some feedback from all of you before moving forward with anything.

One thing I want to make very clear: my goal has never been, and never will be, to put information behind a paywall. A lot of the reason I started making these videos was to help make learning more accessible, and I don't want someone's financial situation to be a barrier to learning game art.

That said, memberships could be a nice way for people who want to support the channel while getting some extra content in return.

Some ideas I've been kicking around:

• A simple support tier ($1-$2) with badges, emotes, and member shout-outs.
• For other tiers have Behind-the-scenes posts and updates on videos, projects, and presentations.
• Source files, example projects, and digital resources.
• Full uncut recordings, livestream VODs, and extended breakdowns that don't make it into the final videos.
• Additional demos and educational content.

Also a lot of people have also brought up the idea of mentorships. Since GDC, I've been thinking more seriously about offering a small number of 1-on-1 mentorship opportunities similar to what I've done there. I've also considered creating recorded workshops, demos, critiques, and source files  during these 1-on-1's, similar to the material I typically provide to students through the institutions where I teach.

I'm still exploring ideas and honestly just want to hear what everyone thinks.

If memberships existed, what would you actually want from them?
What would provide value to you?
What content would you be interested in seeing?

I've put together a quick Google Form if you'd like to share your thoughts:
https://forms.gle/VYinAhnzxJAmmWkr5

Once the Lighting series wraps up, I'll be shifting back toward materials and shaders, and I'm thinking about diving into some Substance Designer content as well.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

Hello Everyone!



I hope you all had a great March! Things got a little hectic right after GDC with a trip to NYC and then getting sick after that! But thankfully, I'm back in the swing of things.  

I just posted two week back a great video on the topic of Modularity and I'm currently plotting out some videos on Lighting in Unreal Engine.

One thing alos happened back in March was the milestone of hitting 2000 subscribers! Which from the bottom of my heart I thank you all for everything! It's been great to see the positive feedback and all the questions that have come in to the channel! It's truly been rewarding to help where I can, which why I started to create these videos.

Now I do have a lot of topics and ideas for future videos, I would love to hear from everyone if there is a particular topic to go over or focus on next as I want to hit those ones as soon as I can. So I created a Google Form that you can fill out with your thoughts or suggestions on what I could put a focus on next!

Here is the link to the Google Form:https://forms.gle/rNbyBBrLX6FUj6B39

Also coming soon, we will have hit the necessary requirements on the channel to apply for Memberships and other features with that milestone. It's still something very new for me and I want also get your feedback on what I can do help with these memberships, such as what to do for each memebership and tier. What you want to see more of behind the scenes or extra content that you would benefit to see from. I don't want to make you feel obligated or pay wall in any way from what I teahc, but if you have any suggestions on what I can do moveing forward is greatly appreciated!

Lastly, when I was in New York, besides eating a ton of pizza, I was able to grab a few material references when I was out and about! Here is are a few! Definitely want to make a video on this some time in the future about how to effectively use referenhce to create things like materials! And also how to use one of these little Color Charts!

Cheers!

Hello Everyone!

First I wanted to say thank you all for the your comments and questions. It's very enlighting to see the video tutorial topics have been received so well! I'm very thankful to be able to help you all with the knowledge and experience I can provide to you!

And thank you for liking, commenting and subscribing! We just recent hit over 1800 so far! Overall I have alot of topics I want to go over and based on some of your suggestions, new ones as well. 

I'm currently working the first of a few videos on Portfolio tips and feedback, just in time for GDC, which we are only two weeks away. THis Portfolio video will be a general overview of what I typically discuss with artists when I do 1 on1 portfolio reviews so definitely keep an eye out. 

And for those that may be attending GDC in person in San Francisco, I will be attending the conference Monday through Wednesday, March 9th-11th. If you want to meet up and chat, I have set up an appointment schedule around my schedule! 

If you follow the link below, there are some 30 minute slots to chat about portfolio, career advice and anything else inbetween. This is local to GDC attendees and even local artists in SF if they want to trek over to Moscone Center!


📅 https://tinyurl.com/3bzunrmx

📍Moscone Center, San Francisco 
📅March 9–11th

But from the bottom of my heart, thank you all for your support and platitudes! After the Portfolio video, I have lined up a few videos on Lighting and Modular workflows!

Hello Everyone! I have another Discount announcement since some folks were asking. 

Since I turn 32 next month, I'm holding a 50% sale on the Shading course. If you use VALENTINE32 in either Gumroad or Artstation for the discount! The discount is valid until March 1st, 2026

Artstation: https://artstn.co/m/eb3w6
Gumroad: https://hughchew.gumroad.com/l/rxnwh

Hello Everyone!

A Happy New Year to all!

Firstly I want to thank everyone for the feedback and support! It really incourages me to keep posting and making more content! 

Secondly I wanted to address something that was brought to my attention, but I unlisted the original PBR video due to weird audio glitching that came upon due to Youtube's processing. I'm going to be diligent on watch after i upload to make sure we don't have issues like that moving forward!

Next ofcourse is today's new video **Flowmaps** This was a topic I briefly covered in my old CGMA content, but with Water. I wanted to go more in depth and detail more on why and how and jusat follow these instructions to get the result. I also wanted to add a way to author Flowmaps as in the original CGMA video I used tools that are 3rd party and I want to future proof artists incase something ever happens and those tools become unavailable.

And next I wanted to clarify a bit, because i recieved some messages about the CGMA content. Think of the CGMA content as starter content. It was a 6 week, how-to on alot of fundamental information such as Master Materials, Vertex Paint, Instances & parameters. It is the basics that will get you on the starting track to learn more on Shaders and Materials. The content I will be posting here on Youtube will focus more on new Content and topics, I started with PBR and Math because I wanted to add additional content and new context as we are starting move toward a new method of Material and Shader creation with Substrate. Moving Forward, a lot fo the new videos will be new topics not covered by the CGMA course. i do hope that clears things up a bit.

And finally if you are curious about more content about the Lava scene I showcased a bit int he Flowmap video, I also made a post on my Artstation with more screenshots of the materials used in the scene.


https://www.artstation.com/artwork/QK...

Anyways, I look forward to 2026 and posting more content, if there is anything Materials, Shaders or Environment focused you want me to cover, I would be more than happy to make a video on!

Hey everyone,

Before anything else, I just want to say thank you to everyone who's subscribed recently. It really means a lot. I’m going to try my best to post often and cover a little bit of everything: beginner topics, intermediate breakdowns, and some nerdy advanced stuff for those of you who like digging deep into materials and shaders.

I’ve been wanting to start this tutorial series for a long time, and I’m finally doing it. My goal with this channel is pretty simple; I want to put out useful & practical knowledge for anyone who wants to learn game art, especially materials, shaders, and environment workflows. Not everyone has the time or money to go to school or take big paid courses, and honestly, that shouldn’t be a barrier to getting good at this stuff. If you’re motivated and curious, you should have access to solid information.

So that’s what I’m trying to build here: a place where you can come in at any level and actually learn something you can apply right away. No gatekeeping. No fluff. Just clear explanations, real examples, and the kind of info I wish I had when I was starting out.

As I start rolling out videos, I’d really love to hear from you all:

What do you want to see next?

What topics confuse you, or what parts of materials/shaders/environments do you want broken down?

Your ideas will help me shape where this channel goes.

Thanks again for the support and I’m excited to get this going and share a lot more with you soon.