What do you do?
What I do depends on the day. I do other art tasks which
may come up, such as logos or maps or user interfaces,
although I don’t seem to do this now so much as
previously. With the bigger team, it’s mainly
just the modeling and texturing.
The size of the team depends on the project, I work
with a level designer who gives me a 2D or 3D level
layout which then needs to have 3d assets created to
match, using concept art or other reference material,
in conjunction with other artists and the art director,
those 3d assets are created. I then work with animators
if I need to and also with the programmers as well after
I’ve done my part, just to make sure it’s
all working when it gets to that next stage.
How did you get to where you are today?
I went the long way around. After high school, I did
a one year Art and Design course, which included some
photography and fine art – in fact, pretty much
the whole range of arts. This led me to Monash Uni where
I did Visual Communication. This ranged from fine art
to drawing and photography, all the way to digital video
and audio and 3D modeling. It was here I realized that
this is actually what I wanted to do. I got into an
honours year in that course, and here I created a video
game from scratch with the help from a lot of other
people. After I left university, I went into graphic
design.
My 2D skills eventually got me a job here at Tantalus
doing Game Boy Advanced stuff. Along the way, I was
always developing my 3D model skills.
I now work on different platforms.
I do 2D work on some and 3D work on others. When I first
started, the technology restraints were such with Game
Boy Advance, a lot of it was 2D work. I’d draw
a whole 2D background and that would go in the game
engine. Nowadays, the process is similar, but we use
a lot of 3D assets to develop those worlds. The technology
can handle it.
What skills are necessary for you
to do your job?
You need both 2D and 3D skills.
You basically need to know a 3D package,
and you need to know how to model a 3D object.
You need to know a 2D package like Photoshop so you
can draw the textures that will be applied to a 3D model.
Above that, you just need the basic technology skills
in the use of computers.
There are a lot of in-house tools
that we need to learn, so if you are not comfortable
learning new applications, that could be a bit of a
problem. And working with a team. When
we build something, it goes off to someone else but
you don’t just hand it off, you do need to work
with them to make sure the next step works and they
understand how you’ve done what you’ve done,
and really to make sure it all works.
This is my first job in the games industry. I did graphics
design for about a year and half. I was looking for
jobs in the games industry at the time pretty unsuccessfully
until I got my first 2D job here.
How important was your education/training?
My education was pretty important because it allowed
me to experiment and know what I wanted to do. Unfortunately,
my education only helped the 2D art. The 3D side came
a lot later. The major thing was actually getting a
folio together, which is almost a hundred percent essential
for a job in this industry. Spending a couple of years
developing that and getting the resources of teachers
and other students. All of the advice you get is invaluable
really.
Where do you see your career going?
I think I’ll always stay in art - or at least
in this point in my life. I’m really enjoying
the art aspect of it. I don’t want a management-type
position. So, really just bigger and better games I
think. One of those games where I can say “I worked
on that” and people can go “yeah, I know
that game” and they loved it!
The career path a modeling artist could aspire to might
start in a junior position, move up to a senior artist
position, then to a lead artist position which is working
with the junior and senior artist, and then up to art
director which works more with the producers and managers,
then onto the lead artists who will hand out the jobs
that are needed to do.
What advice would you give to someone
wanting to enter the games industry?
Definitely make sure that your folio
is strong.
It is much better to have really nice pieces of work
as opposed to lots of medium work – less is more
in that case. Probably try to get as much advice as
you can on your work from different sources.
Your friends are not always the greatest place to go,
especially if they are not technically minded about
games, as they’ll go ‘yes that’s great’.
Parents have a tendency to say it’s all fantastic.
Most art directors are more than happy to see students’
work or even anybody’s work who wants to get into
the field. Go around showing your folio,
get advice, and essentially just make
it better until you eventually get that job you want.
And just don’t give up. If that’s
what you want to do, just keep going and going and eventually
if you’re good enough, that should be enough. |
