Sheehan Ahmed — Technical art and tools portfolio

Pokémon GO

Keldeo Water Shader

Character reflections and footstep-driven ripples, with a reflection strategy designed for mobile.

Shader development · Unity URP / HLSL · 2025

The environment was provided; my contribution was the water shader and its effects.

  • Built a water shader with character and environment reflections, plus footstep-driven ripples and splashes.
  • Reduced reflection rendering costs for mobile by rendering only Keldeo dynamically and using a static reflection probe for the environment.
  • Generated ripple rings in a separate pass from the collision points where Keldeo’s feet touch the water plane.
  • Overlaid the ripple pass on the water normal map to animate the surface.

SPOOKULELE

Frame Data Editor & Visualizer

Tune attack timing, hitboxes, and on-hit effects in Unity with immediate in-game feedback.

Editor tool development · Unity Editor / C#

  • Visualized attack timing alongside animations so designers and animators could tune combat frame data.
  • Editable damage, cancellation, invincibility, multi-hit, and “sticky” frames that nudge the player toward the nearest enemy.
  • Live knockback and screenshake edits with immediate in-game feedback and no recompilation.
  • Enemy profiling, hitbox visualization, and built-in frame stepping.

Rain Visual Effect

A layered rain effect combining particles, depth-based splashes, surface ripples, and wetness.

Real-time VFX & shaders · Unity URP / VFX Graph / HLSL · 2023

SPOOKULELE

Character Ubershader

A shared character shader for stylized lighting, anisotropic hair, parallax eyes, and gameplay effects.

Character shader development · Unity URP / HLSL / Amplify · 2021

Created a shared shader to handle all character materials in SPOOKULELE.

  • Directional subsurface scattering
  • Kajiya-Kay anisotropic hair shading
  • Parallax occlusion mapping for eyes
  • Character effects including flashes and disintegration

SPOOKULELE

Procedural Animation

Character behaviors including head tracking, blinking, and voice-controlled lighting.

Procedural animation development · Unity / C# / HLSL · 2021

Grandma Green

Audio Tool

An in-engine audio workflow that lets the sound team iterate on assets, inspired by Wwise.

Editor tool development · Unity Editor / C#

Grandma Green is a student-led, free-to-play virtual pet and gardening simulation game.

Video Demo

A Unity editor tool for the audio team to iterate on sound assets directly in the engine, with a workflow inspired by Wwise.

Channel Packer

Combine texture channels into packed masks for PBR materials and VFX textures.

Desktop tool development · Python / PyQt

A desktop tool for combining texture channels into packed masks for PBR materials and VFX source textures.

Shadertoy Raycaster

PBR lighting, normal mapping, reflections, directional shadows, and bloom in a GLSL raycaster.

Rendering implementation · GLSL / Shadertoy · 2022

Done as part of a Blizzard graphics test. I implemented:

  • Point & directional lighting with PBR reflectance and normal mapping
  • ambient & emissive lighting with environment-mapped reflections
  • directional shadows & bloom

View the ShaderToy here.

Grandma Green

Dialogue Pipeline

Convert the narrative team’s shared Google Sheets into game-compatible Yarn dialogue files.

Narrative pipeline development · Python / PyQt / Yarn

Created to help the narrative team quickly and painlessly convert their shared Google Sheet workspace to game-compatible Yarn files.

Gameplay footage: Crank Gameplays

Left on Read

Dialogue Tool

Writer-controlled texting behaviors, including pauses, deletions, rewrites, and custom events.

Dialogue system development · Unity / C#

Left on Read is an choice-driven narrative platformer about the harsh realities of modern age communication.

On Left on Read, I needed to provide my development partner, the writer of the story, with an easy solution to write texting conversations that felt natural. The protagonist needed to pause, delete words, rewrite sentences, and have a certain cadence to the way they wrote. It was imperative that we established their personality using these little texting quirks.

I wrote a text parsing solution that used <alligator> tags to define texting behaviors. With tags like <delete>, <pause>, or even opening up to custom events using a <custom> tag, I allowed my development partner full control to make whatever kind of text-based narrative he desired.

BLOOMPUNK

Environment & Lighting

Led a team of seven 3D artists; set dressed, lit, and authored VFX for the game environment.

Art direction, lighting & VFX · Unity / Environment art · 2022

  • Led a team of 7 3D artists to produce assets in a consistent style for the game
  • Set dressed, lit, and authored vfx for the game environment

For more, see the Artstation here.

French Quarter environment art for SPOOKULELE in Unreal Engine

SPOOKULELE

Environment Art

French Quarter environment work in Unreal, including modeled and sculpted assets and trim sheets.

Environment asset creation · Unreal Engine / Modeling / Sculpting · 2023 · Work in progress

  • Updated version of SPOOKULELE’s French Quarter level in Unreal engine.
  • Modelled, sculpted, and textured various assets & trim sheets.

For more, see the Artstation post here.

SPOOKULELE

Vango Rig & Animation

Modeled, rigged, and animated a shielded ranged enemy, from walk cycles to attack and topple states.

Modeling, rigging & animation · Blender / Rigging / Animation · 2021

Vango is a ranged, shielded enemy. I modelled, rigged and animated the Vango animations.