ENVIRONMENTS

RESEARCH // PROTOTYPING // WORKFLOW DEVELOPMENT // 3D // BLENDER // SUBSTANCE // UE5

** Please note: Due to NDAs, various fashion, garment, and specific environment work completed for The Modern Mirror cannot be displayed publicly. However, I’d be happy to discuss my contributions and experience in detail during interviews. **

ENV Lead - nfl & mlb collaboration

ENV LEAD - NFL & MLB COLLABORATION // BREAKDOWN

As the Environments Lead at Modern Mirror, I was responsible for spearheading large-scale 3D environment development tied to high-profile athlete experiences. Though an early MLB project involving Yankee Stadium did not move forward, the workflows and environment systems I developed became foundational for future NFL collaborations, including projects for athletes C.J. Stroud and Bijan Robinson.

My role was to recreate significant real-world locations connected to each athlete’s personal journey. For C.J. Stroud, this included three stadiums: Ohio State, Rancho Cucamonga HS, and Pomona HS. For Bijan Robinson, I recreated a hallway at Union Station in Kansas City from the 2023 NFL Draft—re-contextualized with visual storytelling from Bijan’s life. These environments had to be visually accurate, emotionally resonant, and technically clean for camera movement and lighting.

Key takeaways:

C.J. Stroud – Ohio State Stadium:
Modeled the stadium from scratch using Blender with arrays, curves, and instancing to shape the stands. Began with satellite data (Google Earth + LiDAR scans) to build accurate topography, then refined architectural forms for realism before moving into texture passes.
C.J. Stroud – Rancho Cucamonga & Pomona HS Fields:
Used a blend of reference footage and LiDAR satellite data to model stadiums and their surrounding landscapes (trees, mountains, suburbs). The result was high-fidelity environments with accurate spatial context for storytelling shots.
Bijan Robinson – Draft Room at Union Station:
Recreated the Union Station hallway architecture, then designed custom wall textures and carpets to embed Bijan’s life moments within the physical space. Attention to detail—photo placement, lighting, and storytelling through surface—was key to emotional impact.

These environments elevated the athlete narratives, anchoring them in real, recognizable spaces while integrating personal history through visual design. The process I developed allowed us to move from research to final model in a structured and scalable way, ready for Arnold integration and real-time rendering. The Ohio State stadium alone demonstrated my ability to lead high-volume modeling, environment fidelity, and atmospheric storytelling.

nfl & nba players collaboration

NFL & NBA PLAYERS COLLABORATION // BREAKDOWN

While leading environment development at Modern Mirror, I was tasked with conceptualizing and creating custom virtual spaces inspired by the personal styles of prominent NBA and NFL players. The goal was to reimagine the tunnel walk experience—where athletes showcase their most expressive fits—as a branded virtual experience that placed them in environments aligned with their fashion aesthetic. Though the company dissolved before full execution, this project served as a key R&D phase for our real-time pipeline.

I was responsible for designing and building a wide range of environments—some photoreal and rooted in recognizable locations (like Brooklyn subway tunnels), others more stylized and architecturally expressive—all based on individual player style cues. These demos had to be compelling enough for client pitch, fast to iterate on, and show proof-of-concept for full integration with garments and digital humans.

Key takeaways:

Modeled and textured all environments, which ranged from:
        - A minimalist desert villa inspired by Stefon Diggs’ clean, tonal fashion (pages 1–2)
        - A neon-graffiti Brooklyn tunnel and NYC bodega storefronts for Saquon Barkley (pages 3–5)
        - A clean industrial locker-room hallway aligned with DeVante Peoples’ look (pages 6–7)
        - A Western saloon-style interior for D. Smith, drawing from references of cinematic Americana (pages 8–9)
Used each scene to explore environment narrative building, adjusting lighting, layout, and material logic to support character presentation.
Focused on speed and flexibility over polish—building each environment with prototype modularity that let us update textures, layouts, and camera paths as needed for presentation or feedback.
These experiments ultimately led to the creation of the Environment Texture Library, which addressed workflow pain points I encountered while building scenes across multiple aesthetic styles and levels of detail.

The project became a launchpad for our immersive environment strategy, and directly led to the standardization of materials and modular systems across the studio. Even though the final products weren’t released, these demos proved client interest, validated environment-led storytelling, and provided the technical foundation for future commercial spaces. They also demonstrated my ability to balance narrative design with scalable technical workflows.

environment library

ENVIRONMENT LIBRARY // BREAKDOWN

As part of my role as Environment Lead at Modern Mirror, I began development on an environment library as well as a modular 3D environment system inspired by the architecture of player-access areas like stadium parking garages. The goal was to create a reusable, stylized space that could serve as a flexible backdrop for athletes across different sports and styles, from NFL to NBA. Though the company dissolved before the system was fully realized, it seeded the foundation for our internal environment library.

My goal was to create a modular system of corridors, walkways, and backdrop elements that could be rearranged, textured, and scaled depending on the needs of a client, a campaign, or an individual athlete’s persona. The system had to be both architecturally believable and artistically stylized, bridging cinematic framing with athletic storytelling.

Key takeaways:

Designed an early version of a multi-path parking garage environment, visible in the top-left and bottom-right renders, featuring dramatic curves, high-spec surfaces, and automotive-scale proportions. This space was intended to be camera-friendly and customizable.
Modeled and textured additional environments including:
        - A photorealistic Union Station interior (center-left), originally built for a draft-based NFL project.
        - A fully built-out custom stadium, seen in grayscale development shots (center row), designed using Blender curves and array-based seat structures.
        - Hallways, ornate interiors, and garage variations with modular layouts for future expansion
Compiled all environments—whether finalized or scrapped—into an internal environment library to preserve work, accelerate R&D, and inspire future direction. This practice became essential to avoid duplicated work and to track stylistic evolution across prototypes.

Though not all environments were client-facing, this system established a new standard for modular environment development within the company. It demonstrated my ability to balance visual storytelling with reusable architecture, bridging creative direction with scalable production. The library has since informed new workflows and inspired the structure behind later projects, including the Environment Texture Library. It’s a strong example of my foresight, adaptability, and ability to turn WIP material into long-term value.