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3DTotal : Do you think that you have a better understanding of the way people, animals and insects move and how to model them by having majored in Biology?
James Ku : No, not really. Studying biology at most major universities really means you are studying microbiology, or better yet biochemistry. You don’t really spend any time studying animals or how they move, what you end up doing mostly is chemistry. Memorizing the names of enzymes and proteins and studying how different chemical reactions and functions allow for life on a cellular level. When you think
of biology as an undergraduate major, don’t think cheetahs running on the prairie, think giant textbooks
on how DNA replicates itself. I would say that the only thing I learned at university that applies to what I
do now, is how to be hardcore about working. The |
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university was filled with the top students from all over the country and competing with them to do well taught me what being hardcore and disciplined was really about. It taught me that it’s a cold world we live in and that to succeed you have to be willing to put in the time that others can’t or won’t. I remember there was this one kid who would take all his books and a pillow and an alarm clock to the library that was open 24 hours a day 7 days a week. He would go on a Friday night and you wouldn’t see him again till Sunday night. Competing with someone who was that hardcore taught me the discipline that I try to apply to what I do today.
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3DTotal : Did you enjoy teaching people about modeling and would you like to do more?
James Ku : Yeah, it was definitely fun to teach a
little bit of 3D. I had a chance to teach a little bit at the Maryland Institute College of Art and it was really nice to be able to see the ideas that the students would come up with. It was nice to help them realize their ideas in CG.I gave two or three lectures and sat in on a couple of lab hours so it wasn’t teaching regularly, but what I was able to do definitely appealed to me. I could definitely see one day teaching CG at an art university, though I’m sure I’d be the professor that everyone hates and fears J.
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3DTotal : What part of 3D do you enjoy doing the most? The initial design/concept of a character or the modeling?
James Ku :
I would say that I really enjoy sculpting and painting. I guess that’s not very specific, but it’s not necessarily a phase of a project that I enjoy the most. What I love the most is when you’re so into a project and your concentration is so complete that the world just fades out around you. I love putting on headphones and listening to music while I work, I think it helps to isolate me from what’s around me and helps me to concentrate. I guess people talk about “zoning out” to enter a trance-like state, I guess for me the feeling is more like “zoning in”. It’s almost as if you’re not the one making the work,
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but the work is making itself through you. I find with modeling and painting especially that I can capture this feeling very quickly after I start working.
3DTotal : Which do your prefer to do, High Poly modeling or Low Poly modeling?
James Ku :
Well I think sculpting is sculpting. I think low poly modeling and
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high poly modeling is really the same thing. Of course one has to be more conscious of triangle count to work in real-time 3D, but those limitations are constantly in flux and they are somewhat trivial compared to the fundamentals. The things that are relevant about modeling are things like form, proportion, balance, silhouette and expression. Those things are just as challenging to get right in the world of high poly as they are in low poly. Also something to note is that high poly is quickly becoming a part of real-time game art as well. With modern day engines that are capable of complex lighting and using normal maps, it is becoming more and more necessary as a game artist to be able to do the high poly modeling that those normal maps will be derived from. I would say that any artist who is going into the gaming industry and thinks that they won’t ever need to sculpt hi resolution geometry is kidding themselves. I think we’re seeing that the emphasis is shifting from beautifully painted textures with painted in lighting to more dynamic lighting working in conjunction with normal maps generated from beautifully sculpted geometry. I think games like Doom3, Far Cry, and the demos for Unreal3 are great examples of this.
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