Meet the Devs: Chris Smith (2015.07.21)

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

1. 00:00:00

   I like iwhere I didn't like it but I saw it I had no control over it it just happened yeah got flashed oh man I like how I like how you dressed up for this yeah it's good for camera what your Shir say it's it says umig hey everybody welcome back to meet the devs I'm James P with me today is principal ship artist Chris Smith Chris how you doing man good how are you good thanks for coming on thank you so I don't think the fans know anything about you I've never seen you before so why

2. 00:00:47

   don't you go ahead and introduce yourself well I'm Chris Smith I'm uh lead well principal ship artist now see it's not easy to get this stuff out is it well you know W you move on up you know can't always remember those old titles uh so yeah I've been well I've been here with uh cig for since the beginning I guess I'm employee number 14 or something like that um I've been doing all the ships you know more not all of them but a lot of them uh most of the ships you guys fly around you know 300 ey Hornet uh Mustang M50 um you know constellation coming up all the Varian is for the hornet all the variances well not all the variances some of the variances for the Mustang and so yeah just um been working here

3. 00:01:38

   doing ships for Chris and having fun now you're just getting braggy well you know what you got to be you know when you're doing shifts for Chris so how did you get have some confidence seriously yeah so how did you get started at cig well I got started um actually shortly after a big light off with our previous company uh it's called light box and you worked you worked on Starhawk I worked on Starhawk I did QA for Starhawk over at Sony oh you did yeah that's awesome yeah well you know Harvard then very well yes yes well yeah so I I did actually all the vehicles for for Starhawk the mech the the flying thing the Transformer the the jet bike and all that stuff so best part of

4. 00:02:26

   Starhawk thank you but yeah uh so I did all those you know so I was sort of like a a vehicle guy at that moment and then um during that actually while I was working at light box I saw the first trailer for Star for uh Star Citizen you know that came out then uh in October or August or something and um yeah I was just like Blown Away by it actually we had started we had just finished Starhawk and we were starting a new a new project which actually was a space game um and so then when I saw this trailer I was like whoa It's like that'd be cool the war you know I saw the big bangal carrier and all that stuff so that blew me away and then you know well our company unfortunately folded then um and then a

5. 00:03:14

   few months later Eric Peterson gave me a call asked me if I wanted to model some ships for Starhawk and I was like Star Citizen there too many stars we're not cutting that out by the way we don't cut anything out yeah that's fine so our citizen yes so anyway I was like well hell yeah so how' you get in game how' you get in the games to begin with well you know I uh just in 2004 I got into the game industry and uh just straight out of school I was always sort of like an artist you know did all kinds of stuff um uh Fine Art freelance art uh nothing with computers though uh at all it's just mostly like illustrative stuff you know graffiti jobs um tattooing whatever whatever came by and then um then I was

6. 00:04:05

   like well I need something more steady I think and uh so you know the the whole computer you know 3D modeling thing I was like I'm try that out I went to school went to Art Institute for two years and and the rest his history I guess yeah was that a hard transition because you said you've always been an artist was it hard to go from being able to express it easily to having to like use different systems like a computer to do so no not really actually it was sort of I mean I I guess if you if you start out start out as an artist that's probably a bit easier because then you're just essentially learning a tool MH that you use to create the art you that you like doing um I mean I used to do a lot more like sort of character work um just off-the-wall kind of stuff like that and then once I started in the

7. 00:04:52

   game industry though it was you know the first thing I did was an environment artist right just anything generic and my first gate was uh Duke Nukem at uh in Dallas at 3D Realms and I did and then you know I sort of just evolved into doing some spaceships for them and and doing you know some vehicles for that and and I mean me personally I'm always sort of I've always been a Gearhead too besides just being an artist I like you know working on cars you know and I like watching racing and all that stuff so it kind of you know kind of lend itself to that and and my style and everything so it just kind of evolved into that and know I'm just sort of purely heart surface modeler for the game industry what's your favorite thing you've worked on in Star Citizen so far um what you had a hand in the M50 was fun cuz I I I got to redesign that

8. 00:05:44

   one a little bit um the Mustang was awesome because that went pretty quickly and easily constellation is really fun so far um cuz I got to you know work on the interior and sort of redesign the interior uh a little bit and then yeah I mean all of the latest ships I mean the 300i was fun of course that was my first ship that I did but there was a lot of mistakes that I sort of made on you know Growing Pains I guess you can call those um but you know I would say probably the must saying R 50 so far constellation now though is is is pretty awesome so far what on that one awesome man what was it like being on tngs well tngs was pretty awesome actually that was a definitely a different experience I mean compared to any other game company you know where

9. 00:06:32

   you're very secretive and you don't really you know talk to the people at all like this company has been the exact opposite of that you know since the very first interviews we've had we had in uh in in uh Austin with Sandy and all that and Eric Peters and it's always been you know a lot different in that way and then when we started that it was just you know getting to know the fans physically you know and and hanging out with them and talking to them was just a cool thing you know cu I you you know they you know first of all you know they all you know they all if they like your stuff it's always cool but uh you know they get excited about it and you can see that and that in turn always amps me up I'm like oh man I want to like create like some really cool stuff for you guys and you know it just it's a good motivator but uh and yeah the the show was fun it was just fun to do and uh

10. 00:07:21

    getting to see all that talent that just came in which was was pretty amazing and unexpected actually and well we hired a couple of those we got some employees out of that whole gig so that was cool it was brilliant we got to make a cool little show it was a nice little competition and we saw a lot of really good talent yeah I mean if anything you know you know we're should do another one you know if anything now the next one should be would be better because we have our ducks a little bit more in a row now and uh in the pipeline I think it would go a lot smoother if we did another one would you be back as a as a guest judge rather Well yeah if I'm asked to of course awesome so we're going to let you go four we have three rapid fire questions you ready wrap it up God favorite favorite movie favorite movie uh Aliens 2 okay

11. 00:08:13

    never seen it aliens never seen it favorite video game Starhawk no star citiz of course you can say something else you don't have to say the two games we know you worked on favorite video game yeah oh God have to think about that actually okay um The Last of Us was awesome like Last of Us is great and favorite ship in Star Citizen constellation of course you're a homer man well hey man what do all right man thanks so much for coming on Pleasure having you once again this Chris Smith and I'm James Pew and you just met a Dev keep holding it for