Philipp John Portfolio

Game developer · 3D artist · Unreal Engine 5

Philipp John.

Hi, I’m Philipp. I make games and animated shorts, mostly in Unreal, and usually somewhere between 3D art, storytelling and messing around in the engine. Here’s what I’ve made.

Still from Spin: a surveillance workstation with a camera robot, glowing monitors and a family photo
Spin · UE5 short · 2023Watch below ↓
UE5 animated short · 2023 · Unreal Student Showcase

Spin

The last few minutes of a guy working for a surveillance company, who starts to doubt what he’s doing there.

My first big Unreal short, made at FH Salzburg with one colleague. I directed it and did almost everything you see in Unreal: animation, set dressing, lighting and rendering. It ended up in the Unreal Student Showcase 2023, which I’m still pretty happy about.

Me
Direction, animation, set dressing, lighting, rendering, texturing, script, concept
Team
Core team of two: me and Sonia Steiner (modelling, storyboard, concept art), plus Noah Bitschnau, Tobias Wallinger and Kyrylo Murlian on sound and music
Made with
Unreal Engine 5 (Sequencer, Movie Render Queue), Blender
Link
FH Salzburg project page ↗
Watch Spin
Spin: two spinning tops lit in darkness Spin: dark room filled with dome-shaped surveillance cameras Spin: a red 'suspect' warning over the surveillance interface

Mannequin previs → final

Previs: a mannequin at a desk while a second mannequin points at him
March 2023 · previs
Final: the employee at his desk while an armed figure steps out of the dark
June 2023 · final render

I blocked out every shot with mannequins first to figure out cameras and timing, then built the set, lights and animation on top of the same cameras.

In the engine

Everything in Spin was put together by me in Unreal and animated with Sequencer: MetaHumans, video textures, lighting and cameras.

Unreal animation mode: the character's hand control rig over the globe button, with finger curves in the Sequencer curve editor
The hand hovering over the button, animated directly on the MetaHuman rig in Unreal.
Unreal editor: the confrontation shot seen from outside the camera, the gun selected, keys in Sequencer
All shots take place in the same scene, only the sequences change.
Unreal editor: top-down umbrella scene with a pink umbrella selected and dense transform keys in Sequencer
This shot was oddly satisfying to animate.

Some favourite bits

Getting the spinning top’s inertia right took some time
The hand hesitating was probably the most complex shot to animate
We used an iPad for face capturing directly in Unreal
Game · out on Steam · 2025

Off Course

A narrative boat jump ’n’ run about being ghosted by your best friend. You steer a little boat through the main character’s inner world while getting chased by a vicious fear serpent.

Off Course was our bachelor project at FH Salzburg, with a team of 10. I did the art direction and a lot of the tech art, and wrote my thesis on getting UE5 to look like an expressionist painting. One of my favourite moments when playtesting was watching two little kids share one keyboard to beat the game together.

Off Course on Steam ↗ itch.io ↗
Me
Art direction, environment art, technical art, Niagara VFX
Team
Philipp John, Laura Huber, Lukas Wirth, David Fink, Robert Peters, Tobias Kaiser, Rosemarie Haider, Maximilian Strohmayr, Noah Bitschnau
Made with
Unreal Engine 5(Niagara, Blueprints, Sequencer), Blender, Substance Painter
Awards
Nominee, PGDA Talent Award 2025 · Finalist, Game Development World Championship

Concept → in engine

Level 1 mood board, reference and concept paint-over
Story beats, blockout, mood board, paint-over
Level 1 in engine: canyon at dusk with string lights
In the game

Each level started with story beats from our writer and a blockout from our game designer. I collected references, painted a quick concept to nail the mood, and then built it.

Before → after the art pass

Off Course blockout: white boxes standing in open water between untextured rocks
Level before the art pass
Off Course final: the boat on a glowing lake in front of painted rocks and handwritten thoughts
Level after the art pass

  • One master material

    Every surface in the game inherits from one parent material with colour and strength controls, so we could keep changing the look until the very end.

  • Blockout and art layers

    Art went on its own layer over the designers’ blockout, so we could both keep working without breaking each other’s stuff.

  • Niagara VFX

    I made the boat’s water splashes and dash effect in Niagara and hooked them up to the gameplay with Blueprints.

  • Lots of playtesting

    Whenever someone got stuck on a collision or didn’t know where to go, that bit got another pass.

Some favourite bits

Starting the game with a sunset
Placing an insane amount of pipes throughout the world so players could swing
Designing the fear serpent to be as menacing as possible
Game · Pixelsplit internship · Aug–Dec 2024

Deadly Days: Roadtrip

A cozy roguelite about packing a backpack full of weapons and fighting through thousands of pixel zombies.

I spent my internship at Pixelsplit making environment assets for the randomly generated maps and getting them working in Unreal: hundreds of imports, fixing shading, scale and collisions. Some assets had to be destructable, so I split them up into parts for a Chaos geometry collection. I also assembled houses and structures in Blueprints as templates for the world generator.

Deadly Days: Roadtrip on Steam ↗
Me
Environment art, engine integration, some game design
Studio
Pixelsplit, Frankfurt
Made with
Unreal Engine 5 (Chaos destruction, Blueprints) Blender
Early Access launch trailer

Everything I made

Metabase asset gym: camp props, tents, vehicles and fences Commercial district asset gym: shop signs, billboards and neon Farm and desert asset gym: barns, windmill, tractor and silos All the car variants I made, lined up in a parking lot Copy shop building template Trader building template with a big neon sign Little Italy building template with parking lot Toscana-style house template with garden Road stop template: diner, motel and parking Crashed spaceship set piece in the canyon Steel truss bridge over the canyon Gated community signs and gate pieces

Asset gyms and building templates from my time at Pixelsplit. All modelled and painted in Blender, then set up in Unreal with materials and collisions. The cars are split into parts so they can be blown up.

Other projects

More of my work

wocheneinkauf: first-person shopping cart chaos in a supermarket

wocheneinkauf

Game direction, game design, 3D art

A local PvP game about doing your weekly shopping while the world ends, in a supermarket stitched together from four dimensions. Team of 10 at Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg.

On Steam ↗
Watch

M.A.D.

Direction, art direction, 3D art, compositing

An experimental animation about AI systems that start feeding on their own data until they all go mad. Team of 4 at FH Salzburg.

Student Merit, Young Ones ADC 2025 · Animation

Award entry ↗
Veggie Vendetta game jam key art: two angry red vegetable characters

Game jams

Art, design, whatever was needed · co-organiser

I love jams. I’ve done nine so far and helped organise the one at FH Salzburg. Mostly silly games, but I learned a ton about working in a team and what actually matters in a short time.

See them ↓
Unrighteous Descent
Amapo
Use your Brain
Pyromantiker
Veggie Vendetta
Whoopsie Ecocide
Nice & Naughty Shooter
Sunday Pool Service
Cosmic Symphony
Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart
Portrait of Philipp John

CV

Philipp John · Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart

LinkedIn ↗

Education

  • 2025 – now
    Diploma, Interactive MediaFilmakademie Baden-Württemberg · transmedia & game direction
  • 2022 – 2025
    BA MultiMediaArtSalzburg University of Applied Sciences · focus: computer animation
  • 2021 – 2022
    Media Informatics (1 semester)Furtwangen University
  • 2021
    AbiturGeschwister-Scholl-Gymnasium, Waldkirch

Work

  • Aug – Dec 2024
    3D artist intern, PixelsplitFrankfurt · Deadly Days: Roadtrip
  • 2023, 2024
    Set runner & security, PBO FilmproduktionHallstatt · February shoots
  • 2019 – 2021
    Waiter & bartenderBläsistüble, Kollnau

Projects

  • 2025 – 26
    wocheneinkaufGame direction, game design, 3D art · Filmakademie
  • 2025
    Off CourseArt direction, environment & technical art, Niagara VFX · out on Steam
  • 2024
    Deadly Days: RoadtripEnvironment art, engine integration · Pixelsplit
  • 2024
    M.A.D.Direction, art direction, 3D art, compositing
  • 2023
    SpinDirection, animation, lighting, rendering · UE5 short
  • ongoing
    Game jamsNine so far · co-organiser of the FH Salzburg jam

Skills

  • Unreal Engine 5
  • Sequencer
  • Blueprint
  • Materials & lighting
  • Niagara
  • Chaos destruction
  • Movie Render Queue
  • Blender
  • Substance Painter
  • Maya
  • ZBrush
  • Photoshop
  • Unity

Languages

  • German · native
  • English · fluent