Letters of Recommendation

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Letters of recommendation

John Salera - Senior Development Director - LOTR TA, GF 1 & 2

February 12, 2009

To Whom It May Concern:

I have had the good fortune to work with Tyler Rockwell on three separate projects at Electronic Arts: LOTR – The Third Age; Godfather 1, and Godfather 2. I have found him to be a talented, hard-working, thoughtful, flexible, and enthusiastic environment artist. I was always thankful to have him on my team, and look forward to the chance to work with him again.

On LOTR – The Third Age, Tyler was added to the project late in development. He jumped in with both feet and started helping out immediately. He worked mainly on the Pelennor Fields level – a level which started late in the latter part of the schedule. Not a happy place to begin. However, Tyler partnered well with the other artist on the level and they were able to come up with a plan to make the level happen, on time, and still deliver a visual experience which brought home the feeling of the vast cluttered battlefield in front of Minas Tirith on time. Tyler’s problem-solving skills, his dedication to getting the job done, and his uplifting personality were apparent even back then, and even in the midst of a most trying development schedule.

On Godfather 1, Tyler was our main guy on the objects and there were nearly a thousand of them. Tyler was involved in both developing art assets, as well as interfacing and approving objects created out-of-house. The job required that he bring to bear both his artistic skills and his organizational and communication skills.

On Godfather 2, Tyler wore several hats. He initially was leading the interiors and buildings efforts – both for the internal team and the team in Shanghai. He was unfortunately pulled away to work on another project for several months. When he returned, he resumed his lead duties and help pull off the amazing feat of developing an open world game in 20 months. His work as the building lead required a lot of communication with internal artists, internal designers, and the external art team. Tyler helped craft the pipeline for dovetailing the various asset types and the requirements from art, design, engineering, and project management. Tyler also created and polished many of the assets himself. Tyler has shown a rare strength in being able to manage complicated asset problem spaces, while still getting his work done on-time.

On a personal note, I truly have enjoyed working with Tyler. He brings a lot of energy, enthusiasm, humor, and creativity to his work. He is willing to stand up and point out problem areas when others will simply hope someone else will notice them. When I’m leading a group meeting, I can count on Tyler to ask questions others are thinking but won’t say. He tackled a very complicated part of the project and brought it to a successful conclusion. He’s a lot of fun to have around, and he gets a ton done.

I am happy to provide further information or answer any questions. Tyler has my contact info.

John Salera

Senior Development Director

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Erik Holden - Technical Art Director - GF 1 & 2

To whom it may concern.
I have worked closely with Tyler on several projects at Electronic Arts, and am very familiar with the skills he has developed. He is a very talented 2D and 3D artist, and consistently produces high quality work. He is a problem solver, innovator and, in general, a highly valued contributor to the entire game development process. He is always thoughtful, and looks beyond his own work to anticipate the needs of others up and down the production pipeline, and across multiple disciplines. On our most recent project, Godfather 2, he was a key contributor to designing and implementing several of our art/design pipelines and methods. He pioneered the techniques and then wrote detailed documentation for our artists (both here and in Shanghai) and coordinated asset creation efforts within several disciplines of art production. In addition to these tasks, he also created and optimized a large number of high-quality assets for the title.
He is a gregarious, well-spoken fellow, and always helps make the workplace more entertaining.
I hope to work with him again in the future, and am very happy to give him a well-deserved recommendation.
If you have any further questions, please contact me.

Erik Holden
Electronic Arts - contact info available upon request.

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Meagan Carabetta - Art Director - GF 2

To Whom It May Concern,

Over the past 2 years I have worked with Tyler on Godfather 2. For most of the time I was overseeing his work as his art director on the environments. He was an integral part of the Godfather 2 team leading the environment buildings and interiors. He began to oversee the artists and keep them going with their everyday tasks. He led by example and was able to guide the artists from the time they were hired to full production on how to build the environment in the most economical, sensible way that fit our pipeline. With an open world game we had challenges everyday to overcome. Tyler was able to offer solutions and examples of how to make them work and get the work done efficiently within our time constraints.

He was here many late hours doing his assigned tasks as well as helping and leading others. I found him to be a nice person to have on the team as he is full of laughter and life. He is down to earth and is able to communicate his concerns and his needs to the team members on a daily basis.

I would recommend him on a production team big or small. He is very adaptable and brings a lot of life and experience to a project.

Sincerely,

Meagan Carabetta
Environment Art Director, Godfather 2
Electronic Arts - contact info available upon request.

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Wilfredo Aquilar – Art production Manager – The Godfather

Tyler Rockwell was employed with me both as an intern on Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2002 and as a full time employee on The Godfather at the EA Redwood Shores Studio. Tyler brings a friendly and enthusiastic demeanor to the work place and at the same time is professional and responsible to the tasks asked of him. On the Godfather Tyler was responsible for the object pipeline at the beginning and end of the project. This was a sink or swim opportunity I posed to Tyler which he embraced and took full responsibility over. His duties included planning meetings, writing design docs, and coordinating needs between art, design, and management. This was his first time with the responsibilities normally given to more senior artists and he completed all his tasks on or ahead of schedule. During the middle of the production Tyler stepped down from lead when more senior artists came on board. He demonstrated not only his abilities to work with others but also to take both direction and criticism as opportunities to grow in his career path. He and his team completed their object modeling deadlines ahead of schedule. He later made himself available to help out on our world assembly team and came in weekends to fix work that had been done incorrectly by other team members. Tyler would make a great addition to any team. His ability to take on new tasks quickly and his interests in lead/management type work should make him a long time asset.

Wilfredo Aquilar

Electronic Arts - contact info available upon request.