Austin Artist Roundtable

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

1. 00:00:07

   hi guys I'm Ryan Archer I'm the marketing artist here at uh Cloud Imperium games based in Austin Texas and I get the privilege of being here with our character art team in Austin and so let's go around the table and kind of talk about uh who you are and what your title is and job here so David I'm David Jennison I am the elite character artist here in Austin um I'm responsible for uh getting the characters as good as they can look and that they will work within the awesome universe that we're building uh my name is Billy Lord I'm here in the Austin office I'm a junior character artist I'm responsible for translating her Concepts into 3D and uh making them Reach the quality bar and and Beyond of what we've said my name is Megan chever and I'm the

2. 00:00:56

   character concept artist here in Austin I make the concepts for these guys to make all beautiful for the game so Austin has now become the persistent Universe uh Studio which means that we're looking at the bigger picture now we're looking at things that are going to affect the game from Arena Commander the FPS onto everything else I know one thing you guys are working on is character customization right now how is that coming along uh well we're working closely with the UK Studio because uh we're having to meet a lot of the same needs as they are um the differences were you know were persistent we have to have you know more variety we're not as specialized um so it's really been a matter of uh working with design and and kind of figuring out uh the balance between uh variety uh and uh kind of uniqueness of

3. 00:01:46

   of particular pieces The Experience so far is really just trying to find that balance um making a system that uh where all the pieces work well together and play nice so what I know start syst is a very realistic game I know that's one of the things that CR is always talking to us about U we're pushing for better visualization better reality how does that affect uh the idea of character customization well probably the first thing is Fidelity um because we're you know texture resolution things like that are higher uh in this than certainly any other game I've uh worked on so there's certain things you used to be able to are working on a game with lower Fidelity uh you can kind of cheat you don't have to sculpt in as much detail on like the high resolution and things

4. 00:02:32

   like that it's kind of like working uh on a a photograph that's close up if you're a photographer and you're working on you know like closeup photographs versus from far away so naturally it takes a little bit longer to to make most assets um you just have to be more careful U but certainly the realism you know it's just a higher bar uh because everybody naturally Compares it to life so yeah I would say just from the the asset perspective you know and I think it's um It's a situation with the customization on on on across the board that all the character artists here as well as the UK um everything has to be exactly like he said what it's like working with photographed you you want the Leathers to look like Leathers you want the cloth to look like cloth denim

5. 00:03:20

   to look like denim so when you mix and match these things you can immediately tell what it is and you can immediately see that it's right and there's no we don't hit that uncanny valley of well it looks like Silk but the texture is denim you know you really want it to look right and I think uh the Fidelity has been U an exciting challenge to uh to explore and and and hit that Mark yeah so it's been been a lot of fun so far and how's that affected the concept stage from a concept perspective it's making sure everything makes sense like seams make sense and that all the jackets can close and all the shoes can buckle or lace up like how they're supposed to and how they would in real life so it's paying attention to a lot of real life clothing and accessories so that's the way that we're keeping it pretty realistic for these guys to model

6. 00:04:08

   out and you should see some of the seams and threading that these guys put in pretty ridiculous you should see some of the reference she pulls man I have never in my life seen some some outfits like what she finds right you know right I know we come to work we come to work jeans t-shirt button- down shirt whatever there are people out there in the world look literally like something you see out of Star Wars you know where it's coming across and it's like a big plastic thing coming up right I don't know what the designers are doing over across the pond in terms Project Runway oh it's terrible the world is is frightening when it comes to to Fashion well and that's an interesting thing too I mean you're we're we're thinking about something that's going to be what a thousand plus years in the future I mean we know that a lot of times we'll see like 2001 Space Odyssey uh and it is

7. 00:04:57

   nothing like what 2001 was like that's how they thought it very disappointing you know that's been the big same in 1984 yeah that's been that's been the big the big thing across Facebook and everything this year is is where's my hoverboard you know looking at Back to the Future Back to the Future and yeah what what filmmakers see of the future is completely different and I'm I'm still looking forward to my Minority Report screen you know where I can yeah I still I mean all those Twilight zoning you know no where everybody's in a bodysuit and bald and I'm like that's your world it's not happening yeah's looking for equality yeah yeah no I understand so I mean I imagine that's a

8. 00:05:45

   big challenge for you as a conert artist right to try and visualize how how can something be futuristic but still be realistic like where will we be right because we've been keeping it like I we as we've been talking about on the realism side we haven't been pushing a lot of like super sci-fi Concepts like you'd see I don't know like 80s sci-fi like it's nothing too out there we want to keep it really grounded M so it's just finding smaller details that we can change like materials or just subtle patterns that kind of push it to well it's still relatable but it's not too far out there yeah um so it's kind of finding that happy medium between futuristic and um modern there's there's only so many ways you can like fasten a shirt together buttons or I guess we could do like laser zippers or something

9. 00:06:35

   but Las zippers it's like scii for the sake of sag getting yourself caught in that zipper yeah exactly well I mean you look at you know half the half the studio half the office here wearing wearing Chuck Taylor you know and they've been around for how long you know at least since the 70s you know uh maybe even before that I'm been around for like longer than that yeah that sort of stuff War oh yeah Civil War yeah Civil War when they were getting caught in the pickles well so you guys mentioned about trying to interface with other teams like the Manchester office and you know we have various Outsource companies and stuff how has that been working uh working with people who are not in this studio it's been you know it's had to share challenges uh you know a lot of it is you know anywhere from the standard thing of where you have you know people

10. 00:07:23

    uh who who have different experiences and bring different experiences to the game and so they have different ways of doing it and we all have to kind of reconfigure and figure out what's the best way for this project um to just uh communicating you know the big thing right now is you know working with uh Andy Matthews the lead in in the UK about syncing up our customization system so that we are working with the same system we want their assets to play nice with our assets so that we can build this nice pool of library of of different pieces of clothing and armor whatnot that'll all work together you from my experience you know it's been it's been relativ easy uh you know using Skype and and the different software packages we use that we can put our images up and get feedback almost instantaneously uh from Chris Roberts

11. 00:08:10

    and uh from Andy across the pond um it it's it's pretty pretty easy to to communicate now I have a different scenario than David for sure I get maybe you know he gets at least 60 emails a day I get maybe one if I'm lucky so uh that's nice well I say lucky yeah I mean it's nice to not have a lot of emails um so my my communication only comes into play when I have something to show M um but it's always been pretty pretty good the feedback that we've gotten has always been what is needed to to push the asset further and to make it what the fans want to see and what is appropriate for the game uh which is nice because usually when you post something on the Internet uh the feedback you get often times on forums is you know not

12. 00:08:58

    necessarily for the game but in personal in personal work um there are a lot of trolls in the world that don't want to see you succeed and so it's nice to get uh feedback that is just meant to push your asset further and to make your art look that much better right so that's that's been nice yeah and that's that's kind of something I've noticed too being working in the Austin office around artists I feel like it's allowed me to grow as an artist and absolutely you guys feel like having that on a global scale has allowed you guys to grow even more than just even just being in an art studio I would say absolutely yeah I mean I think one pro about like uh you know the UK having their own kind of uh character team is that there's going to inevitably be some competition just in terms and I that's good it's going to push us to try to make our stuff as good as it can look it's going to push them um so I think that that's definitely a good thing and yeah yeah and the way the

13. 00:09:46

    game industry seems to be set up is unless you the UK doesn't really hire not the Sig Studio but the the studios over there in in the United Kingdom They Don't Really hire easily unless you are there uh a lot of Americans don't necessarily get jobs over there so it's nice to have people that that we work with from traveler Tales or different Studios you know krych UK that they've had different experiences that they they can shed light on things that we may not have experienced you know coming in here you know David worked at Sony before this so he's bringing his experiences from there and so for someone like me who's a junior I come in to have all these really experienced Guys these super talented people sharing all their experiences that help uh that help to to lunch after this okay I hope he doesn't

14. 00:10:35

    the joke cuz the joke was that if I'm ever fired he's going to buy my lunch so I hope that doesn't happen uh oh I see a little bit of A Veiled Threat is that it was more of a thanks for the plug so many talented amazingly talented people here well I mean it's true you know you get such a such a blended wealth of knowledge that that comes in and it you know from where I was when I came in to where I am now you know I can compare the work from then and now and you know Leaps and Bounds you know different and it's it's all for the better yeah you know Chris Roberts has a very high bar oh yes and that that is what I think pushes everybody um and the trick is you know you push yourself to a certain degree you're like ah this this

15. 00:11:22

    is as good as I can do and you put it out there and sometimes you get feedback that wants to bring it up more and there's obviously you know some frustration cuz you're not getting necessarily the recognition that you necessarily wanted on that piece but then when you go back and you push yourself beyond that and you come back and you're like yeah it is better now that's right that's an improvement so that's always something that's good yeah and I've i' I've seen that too you know watching you guys and even in my own work where you know you'll work really really hard on something and you'll show the CR and he'll say um you know it can be better and I mean does do you guys feel intimidated sometimes showing your work to CR you know I think so I mean certainly in the beginning yeah yeah in the beginning more so when I started it was very you know this Chris Roberts he's got a lot of a lot of clout behind him you know in terms of you know his

16. 00:12:10

    his experiences in the past and it's like oh I'm showing my stuff to him and um but it's never been with anyone it's never been this is bad I don't like this this is horrible go home it's it's always you know like what David said I this is bad this is horrible you're fir it's it's I think this can be better you know and so but it's not just this can be better or I don't like it it's it's this can be better and I think this is how you can do it or I don't like this because of this and and it's really focused as opposed to just you know kind of the middle of the road comments well I don't like it you know well that doesn't help anybody we're very fortunate to not get that and and I mean Direction you know some his proximity obviously cuz he's not here um like any experience working with somebody when

17. 00:12:57

    they're here mhm you it's it's more comfortable um it feels more like you you you work for a long time on a on like a sculpture and then you like leave it out in the middle of a meadow and you go home and you come back the next day and it's either got like a a god Ray on it a or it's totally destroyed it's like exactly but you know that there's you know that's part of it you know the challenge I think and what I've learned with this industry is the difference between being a you know a gallery artist versus a commercial artist is how do you uh be passionate about your work without being attached to it and in my experience the the difference between people that make it in this industry as

18. 00:13:45

    an artist and don't are ones that find that balance on one extreme you have people who are they're super passionate about the work but they can't take any feedback because they take it so personally and they get very defensive on the other end you have people who um they can take whatever feedback they'll do whatever you want but there's no fire in their work they don't care they just go home at the end of the day so how do you be passionate about what you're working on but then be completely open to feedback or changes you might work on something for a long time and then oh actually we're not going to use that but you know that that's just part of it so that's the balance I think all all commercial artist or game artist have to find right and I I remember when when she first started she put her very first concept up online David I'm sure you remember this and we went to lunch she put it up right before went to lunch

19. 00:14:33

    she barely ate anything right she was so frightened and then she came back yeah exactly and then we came back and mark and David are both like yeah you should look on shotgun oh you know and it turned out that he was like this is great oh yeah we played a joke on her awful but she was so frightened you could see that in her face because you know she's it's it was same thing with everybody I think you put your first thing up there and you're you're you're scared of what's going to happen but it's it's never as bad as you think so right so mean how have you liked working in this environment like do you feel like you've grown a lot as an artist oh it's been great so since I said with these guys the character artists um I've been shown the world of extreme detail when it comes to clothing um so that's been a lot of fun

20. 00:15:20

    in pushing my own work and just you know again being surrounded by other professionals and getting feedback to push design and making sure everything's functional for everyone and nothing too crazy but yeah I've become more sensitive and aware of the concepts I produced so that's been a huge growth in my own work just from working here for not a super long time but I've already noticed a big change yeah yeah that's what you know that's that's definitely the benefit of working in a studio and especially a studio with so many talented people um so uh but I imagine this is pretty ambitious to be in the concept team for the persistent Universe do you feel yeah we got a lot of work to do yes yeah we do yeah pretty big t uh figuring out what everyone's going to

21. 00:16:09

    look like and uh between NPCs and players and figuring out what people are wearing and what that looks like in the future it's a pretty big project yeah yeah I think she hits on something where this is the difference between doing a persistent Universe game and a regular game is you have to think to a certain degree you feel like the founding fathers of uh you know like America or whatnot like you have to think not exactly but you know like hundreds of years in the future like we need systems that will be flexible uh for expansion um but if you spend too much time with the wh ifs you don't actually make any decisions so there's so many moments along the way you're like okay we got to decide on this you know how many pieces or uh what are texture resolution is going to be cuz once we decide it and so it's a little scary but everyone you get

22. 00:16:57

    past you know you're you're you know hopefully finding that where you're coming up with a with a flexible system but that has rules that you can form a a workflow and a pip line around that works I know you guys are doing great work I'm glad to be here and be able to see you guys working and we're glad to have you yeah thanks but um so we can't wait to see what you guys come up with in the future and I know the fans are going to be very excited to see stuff coming out of Austin in the next you know couple months and over the year um so I know the fans would love it for me to tell you guys thank you for all your hard work you guys are awesome uh this is we're making the best uh space game out there best damn space g best damn space game thanks Billy um and so also we want to say thanks to the fans cuz

23. 00:17:47

    without them we couldn't be making this game yep and so thanks guys thanks for your support h