Andrew
started his guest lecture by talking briefly about what he was going to discuss
over the next 2 hours. He began with a slide showing his progression in the
games industry from 1991 where he worked towards a degree in Architecture up to
his current position with Rockstar games. After expressing a lot of admiration
and satisfaction with his current employment also quoted that the company
itself; which is a global company is “One great big family”. Andrew proceeded
to explain how he moved from different job roles in the games industry
throughout his 8 years of experience, a notable one in particular being his
Magenta Studios in Liverpool. Whilst here Andrew worked on games for younger
audiences and expressed how this is a typical situation in the games industry
as it is unlikely that you will be working on games you actually don’t want to
play.
From this
Andrew proceeded to talk about game the games he does like to play, games like
Playdeads Limbo and the brilliant Uncharted from developers Naughtydog. From
this he began to explain his job role, Technical Artist at Rockstar Games, a
job which he described as being very focused around “Problem Solving”. He
brought up a slide which had a screenshot from a games development company
recruitment page which showed the demand for Technical Artists which is
particularly high due to the complexity of the role. IT was from this that he
showed us a list of what his job requires on a daily basis;
Morning –
Email/Sync/Task list
Lunch –
Gaming/Personal projects
Afternoon –
Core work.
Evening –
Report/Crunch
This was
particularly interesting for me as an FdSc Games Technology student as it
really gave me an insight into what I could potentially be expected to do when
I finally make the transition into the video games industry. Andrew then
discussed further about his job role and brought up a slide which fully
detailed the software which can be expected of those looking to get into being
a Technical Artist like himself. Most of the software on display is taught at
Confetti Media and I was very humbled by that fact, knowing that the skills I
am working with and developing are all on Industry grade software.
This brought
Andrew onto his next topic of discussion which was how Scripting or Computer
coding is part of his job role, he stressed which languages are particularly
sort after in the Industry being MEL which is the Maya modelling software
script and MAXscript which is the 3DS Max script. As well as these an
understanding of C# and C++ are both very sort after skills. Following this Andrew went on to talk about
the kind of software he creates using script, these came in the form of Tools
which aid the development of the video game title. Andrew explained that the
role of a Technical Artist is the essentially “Speed-up” the existing Art
work-flow this ultimately results in saving both time and money for the
company. He explained how the general rule of thumb for deciding on which
work-flows need sped up is to take a step back and think “Do we need to do
this?”
It was at
this point that I really felt like I was beginning to understand the complexity
of Andrew Davis’s job role, hearing in detail about the requirements of what is
expected of him was almost daunting. However he assured us that the position
itself is one which not as overwhelming as it looks, he did this by explaining
how the job can be split between specifics. What he meant by this is that some
technical artist will be more focused on the rigging of a character model
whereas other might be more focused on handling bugs in the engine. It was at
this point that Andrew stressed the advantages of having a good grip on
mathematics if you are considering a future working as a technical artist,
specifically mentioning formulas like Pythagoras Theorem. It was here that
Andrew played a video which showed an example of his hard work which was an
animation of Lego pieces; which have been made in 3D software, flying onscreen
and assembling by themselves to create a large vehicle. Following this Andrew
touched on the last commercial project he worked on which was a video game
title called Max Payne 3, he mentioned how enthusiastic employers are about
keeping current working projects discrete and that usually contracts are put in
place to maintain a code of silence regarding the project outside of the
workplace.
After
hearing about what a Technical Artist like Andrew Davis does in his day to day
routine as well as exactly what is expected of him from an employer I can
safely say that I feel a lot more in touch with the games industry workplace.
Not to mention the fact that Andrew himself was an absolute gentleman, if I can
one day find myself working with inspiring individuals like him in the games
industry then I will know that I am truly “Living the dream”.
Samuel Johnston, FDSC Gaming Student
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