Hi,
I'm Arron Burgess, a generalist 3d modeller, environment designer, prop modeller, PBR material artist/texture artist, software development initiate, gamer and appreciator of the natural world.
My experience in level design initially stems from creating third party maps for the first Unreal (also re-released as Unreal Gold) back in 2002 or 2003, to Half-Life, to Quake 2, to Half-Life 2, to GZDoom, to idTech 4.5 (the engine that runs Doom 3 BFG Edition), so on and so forth. Creating game worlds is a strong passion of mine, to which as a subject there are many facets of.
3d Modelling is not dissimilar from creating 3d world geometry for most of these older titles. Typically most of these engine's rely on world geometry format known as BSP (binary space partitioning), but what 3d modelling and level design have in common is that they all consist of vertexes, edges and polygons - and anyone creating experiences with these needs to be conscious of their budget (mostly polygons) on screen at one time. Newer engines certainly make use of new hardware features found in newer GPU's, supporting a higher polygon budget. Older engines such as Unreal Engine 1 that powers Unreal currently only renders everything from the CPU, as the game was developed before graphics cards were a standard for gaming, therfore one has to be highly stringent with their polygon and performance budget.
I started dabbling with 3d modelling for my Unreal 1 levels back in 2013, at first creating simple static meshes and props like intricate fluorescent light fixtures. Perhaps around the same time I started using GIMP to create new textures. At first my textures were either basic edits of pre-existing Unreal textures or edits of photo sources.
When discovering highpoly to lowpoly baking workflows akin to id Software's method of creating all of the models and materials in Doom 3 (actually it's a method that's quite standard practice in the common day), I feel as though my ability to create things without restraints really exploded. This method opens the door to PBR materials among so much more and I feel I can create anything I really want to.
My love for gaming spans all the way from my early years. At the age of 3 in 1993 I was playing on my Dad's Atari ST and Spectrum, afterwards I would be playing various games on the Sega Megadrive after it was handed down to me from my older cousin. I moved onto PC gaming also around the same time I started getting into the Playstation. My very first games on the PC included Quake, Hexen, Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines, Populous, Dungeon Keeper and potentially more.
My 3d art is complimented by my love of the natural world and historical castles (which we have alot of here in the UK).
Software development and Web development:
Since 2025 I have begun embarking on my journey into full stack Software Development and Web Development. I joined the Tech Educators Software Development course and cohort in November 2025 and finished it mid February. On this course I delved into topics such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JavaScript D.O.M manipulation, postgres SQL, web API's, ReactJS, NextJS, server APIs, Github, WSL Ubuntu and the interaction with a full stack web app between the front end, server and the back end (database). Additionally I also briefly touched on ThreeJS amid a research project within that course.
Feel free to explore my portfolio <3
