What is your specific role as an environment artist and what’s your favourite work so far? what kind of day to day jobs do you do? And do you think it would be possible to do this kind of work while being self-employed?
My current job as an Environment artist involves creating levels/assets for Vtime. Day to day can involve anything from modelling, texturing, lighting, uv's, bug fixing. I have never been self employed, but know people who are contractors in the industry.
Do you have any Specific abilities that you gained which helped you get into your job position and is there any transferable skills required when interviewing for the job?
Having a good portfolio is the best way into the industry, the hardest part is getting your foot in the door, its fiercely competitive with the market being so saturated. If you get an interview somewhere, read up on the company, find out as much as you can about their working practices and workflows, that can come across really well. I guess 'experience' is the main transferable skill in this industry.
With technology and software constantly being developed how has that affected your Workflow, how did you learn to adapt?
This is a tough one. It's one of the best and worst things about the industry. Technology moves so fast and it's great that there's always new stuff to learn, the problem is getting the time to learn it all. New programs can come out that arn't used in your companies work flow, so if you want to learn it it's down to you to do it in your spare time.
The biggest piece of advice I can give hear is to never be intimidated or overwhelmed by things you don't know. Starting something from scratch, whether its a piece of work or learning something new can always be intimidating, just dive right it, everyone starts somewhere.
What effect if any do marketplace developments have on them?
Lots, with every console generation comes a new workflow.
When Sony evolution studios shut, how did you manage to find another job position and how did you find the transition to Starship?
Being made redundant wasn't a particularly pleasant experience, especially at the time, because Evolution was the only studio I'd ever worked at. I took a few weeks to work on my portfolio, had a couple of interviews and luckily I found a new job relatively quickly. Looking back now it's one of the best things that could have happened, I've learnt so much and become much more confident in my abilities as an artist.
Is there any health and safety issues where you work?
No idea, probably! :D
Is there any legal rules you have to follow, like how game companies aren’t allowed to leek information of games before it is released?
Yep, I generally don't talk about any project i'm working on just from fear of being shouted at.
Hope this helped, all the best!
Comments