After serving six years in the US Air Force, Steed started his civilian career with Origin Systems as an artist for Chris Roberts' team working on the 2D content for Strike Commander. Paul was given the task of testing the software for the low-detail 3D backgrounds and soon after was crafting detailed fighters, tanks and ships (originally intended to be 2D sprites similar to Wing Commander 1 & 2). This led to Strike Commander being one of the earliest games to be entirely modeled in 3D. He then went on to create the 3D art for games such as Wing Commander Armada, Heart of the Tiger, The Price of Freedom, Pacific Strike, Wings of Glory, Bioforge and others.
Paul then joined id Software where his name and art style became synonymous with the Quake series including the infamous Crack Whore skin for Quake 2 which was his entry in a contest sponsored by the female gaming group "The Crackwhore Clan". Steed was later fired from id Software after conflicts with John Carmack over Doom 3.
He eventually moved on to work for Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Atari and Wild Tangent and was active in the game development community, giving talks and holding contests for 3D modeling.
As part of his ongoing experience, Steed published three books:
- Modeling a Character in 3D Studio Max (1st and 2nd Editions)
- Animating Real-Time Game Characters
Paul finally co-founded Exigent alonside Garland Wong and Jesse Rapczak which operated as a game art clearing house company that assisted projects on contract.
Paul Steed died unexpectedly in August, 2012. In honor of his early work, his name is currently immortalised in Star Citizen as the UEES Paul Steed - a gigantic Bengal Class carrier of the United Empire of Earth shown in the promo trailer for Star Citizen's Kickstarter campaign.
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