Odd Enough

I originally wrote this as a post on the Polycount forums under a thread with the same topic. I figured it could be a good idea to post it here as well for posterity.

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Early years

Throughout the 25 years I spent diving through various interests, a similar theme was prominent through each phase: the NEED to create. Looking back on my childhood, I must have seemed like a strange kid. I rarely ever talked, even to other kids my age. I had these massive tubs of legos and kinex and would sit there for hours and hours building contraptions. Apparently, this was very confusing to my parents. It wasn’t until 5 years ago that I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, which makes my childhood a whole lot less confusing.

It seems that I lot of us have had similar experiences in school; Being the strange kid who struggled through grade school. I was anything but a model student. I don’t think I ever acquired an ‘A’ grade on anything during my time from grades 1-12; Mostly C’s, D’s, and F’s. I was told by many teachers throughout those years, that if I couldn’t do well in school, I wouldn’t be able to attain the job I wanted.

Part of the reason that my grades were so poor, was that I played video games on my computer every day, and barely got any work done. I also dabbled with the Descent 2 level editor (which was cube-based) as well as Ray Dream Studio that a friend of mine had. Naturally, my parents would take away the computer for a few weeks as punishment, but I would just find other ways to amuse myself. I would start drawing (I use this term loosely as my drawing skills were and still are horrific) concepts of spaceships, robots, and weapons (I was big into Descent at the time).

Yet, even at that point, I was not interested in art. Wasn’t on my radar at all, at least not consciously. I started my interest in game development early when I joined the Descent 4 mod team in 2001, when I was just starting 10th grade. My role was that of the sound designer. Throughout grades 6-12, I was very interested in music creation. I learned the piano, the guitar, and a few brass instruments, and had stocked up on a handful of studio condensor mics and mixers. I knew how to manipulate sounds to get a desired sound effect, so it seemed like this was the direction my life would go. I even looked at Full Sail as a potential school to go to for sound design in movies and games.

I followed my sound design pursuit after high school, recording some friends and their bands, and I made a little cash on the side. But it didn’t stick. I got bored and realized that I truly didn’t know what I was doing. The drive to figure that out just wasn’t there.

Graduation from high school was rather anticlimactic. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, and thus I did not want to head off to college only to find out that I wasted my money (which ended up being the main gripe most of my friends had about college, so I guess I dodged a bullet there). So for 6 long years, I did nothing but play video games, while living in my parents house. I did try to pick up on programming during that time, only to realize that I sucked at it.

The drive to create was still there though.

The Lead-in

There wasn’t so much of a break-in to the industry as a long and gradual lead-in. Around spring of 2009, a buddy of mine had a birthday coming up and wanted to do this crazy video prank/joke/collage thing (I won’t link to it out of sheer embarrassment at how bad it is). I saw a certain type of effect in a commercial that I wanted to replicate, and I did some digging and found that the software used was called Adobe After Effects. I had never heard of this thing before, but downloaded the trial and saw what I could come up with. I was able to pick it up right away; The UI fit me like a glove and I instantly fell in love with it. I started to make short animations here and there, following Video Co-Pilot like the rest of the mass of newbies wanting to learn how to make cool shit. Don’t get me wrong, VCP was great for starting out, but they don’t really go past the “give a man a fish” to the “teach a man to fish” mentality.

For that, I required something more substantial. I needed to learn more about art/color theory, principles of animation, best practices, and develop my own techniques and style; Something that would set me apart from the mass of tutorial copiers. After about a month of fooling around with my own animations, I asked the professor in charge of the art and film department at the local post-grad tech school to see what he thought of my work. According to him, I was beyond anything he could teach me, so I went on to attempt to do some freelance work here and there.

Freelance sucks. I hate it. So many variables that you need to take into account if you want to be successful with it. It is nerve wracking wondering how (and moreover, IF) you’re going to make any money for the month. Success in freelancing largely depends on how much demand there is in your area of work, and how well you’re able to market yourself. I started off making promotional videos for a few of the larger LAN party groups on the east coast; GXL, FITES, and PITTCO. I had the opportunity to do these only because I was part of FITES staff originally, and the other two just jumped in on the fun.

It was during this time that I realized that I can’t freehand draw for jack shit. So I stay away from that. But vertex art? Now this is something I can get my head around. Makes a whole lot more sense! Case in point:

The big slap in the face for me was stepping into the murky waters of corporate and studio freelance. A friend of mine who worked as a motion designer for a studio that did work primarily in TV spots, called me to do some work on a rebrand pitch for the Sundance Channel. Mostly just logo reveals. I was just starting to use Cinema 4D at the time to compliment my motion graphics in AE. Suffice to say, that at the rate they accepted to pay me, well.. they didn’t. After a few emails back and sending the invoice a few times, I gave up. Fortunately, I started an internship at a web dev shop nearby called MudBrick Creative.

The Break-in

SO! On to the meat of the story. I started working at MudBrick back, well… literally 1 year ago this month. I started off doing motion graphics stuff for them. Website animation here, demo reel there, exploding cubes over here, minor web assets, etc. Later on, I started to get more into 3D modeling, and learning how to model instead of just kitbashing primitives together.

Around March of this year, my boss suggested that I spool up on UDK so I can start to remake our office. This environment was to be used for this crazy contraption called a Virtusphere. A Virtu-what, you say? It’s a giant hamster ball on wheels that you run around in with a gun controller and a VR headset. A completely nauseating experience, as our programmers have insisted that I be the guinea pig for their testing:

Since then, part of MudBrick has broken off to form Lighthammer FX, and are now developing games for PC and mobile. So, a bit of a long and gradual process, but I got there, thus fulfilling my teenage dream, and spitting back at the teachers who told me I would never get here. Huzzah! The height of this adventure has been having lunch with the Creative Director at Ubisoft, Jason VandenBerghe. Seriously awesome guy.

What to take away from my experience?

Surround yourself with people smarter than yourself. Not only online, but in life as well. If you hang around people vastly more intelligent than yourself, sure.. you might feel stupid, but over time, the intelligence can rub off on you, and you will be a sharper person because of it. Use that noggin! Most of us have barely scratched the surface of what our brains are capable of.  I would also suggest taking part in the twitter 3D art community. The  artists there tend to be a fantastic group of people if you want near-instant and constructive feedback.

Generate contacts and form relationships. Networking and contacts are your greatest ally.

Build up your skill set. The more proficiencies you have, the more viable you’ll be in the long rung. Don’t get me wrong, you should still specialize in a specific area of work, but don’t limit yourself to that. The more you know in other areas, the better chance you’ll have with keeping your job secure. Versatility is key!

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In addition to what I wrote there,  I would also like to share some advice. If you are a budding artist looking for a job, your overall attitude is a MAJOR deciding factor for employers considering you for the team. I understand that having graduated from an art school might fill you with some misguided sense of entitlement, but you seriously need to leave that mentality at the doorstep. Or preferably, the trashcan. Trust me, if you ignore suggestions or advice that the current team members offer to you because you feel that you don’t need it, you’re hurting yourself and the respect your teammates have for you. Don’t be a moron.