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3DTotal: Hi Rich, Thanks for talking to us. Apologies for the first most obvious question, but how did it all start for you?
Rich : No problem! Well let’s see. I’ve probably been drawing and painting for as long as I can remember. So I always knew I’d want to do something related to art. I think I actually wanted to become an architect
at some point. Don’t ask me why!!
While in high school I started getting more into portrait painting, while trying to achieve a very realistic
style to my art. I think I’ve always been more into realism then "cartoon-ey". I actually had one of my paintings tour all of New Jersey, where I'm originally from. It was a very cool feeling! And considering I,
like most artists out there, didn’t get the best of grades, it finally gave me the confidence to realize that I won’t just be one of those starving artist types. I got my first powerful computer in my sophomore year of high school and pretty much everything changed from there. I got heavily into video games and computers
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in general. I was a big Warcraft and Diablo fan and absolutely fell in love with their cinematics. I think it was then that I realized I wanted to make games for the rest
of my life. I am the type of person that goes after what
he wants. So, considering I knew that I wanted to make games, I did as much as I could to make that a reality. Computers have always come easy to me. So I knew I had the technical background to learn anything I needed to learn. The hardest part was finding out information.
The internet was just starting to get big. The only two choices I remember having for service back then was AOL or Prodigy. Great choices, huh?!! There really were no cg forums yet. At least not that I knew off. So my only choices really were to try to figure out what I needed to do on my own.I begged my parents to buy me some type of 3d software. Again…I knew nothing! So I went to my local computer store and found the only 3d software that was available: Truespace! Well, I tried. It was hard. That’s all I’m gonna say about that. With college just around the corner, I did my best to research as much as I could and to find a school that would teach me anything that had to do with 3d. Being from the east coast I had some good school options available to me. I got into both the School of Visual Arts in New York and the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. SVA had a really amazing silicon graphics lab but I wasn’t too keen on being in New York. So I
chose the latter. During my freshman year, the University of the Arts had started a brand new Multimedia program. |
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It gave me the chance to learn a wide variety of different programs. I also had access to learning my first real 3d package, Softimage 3d. After 3 years in the program I started to have the feeling that I wasn’t learning what I needed to learn. The program was tailored towards web page design and multimedia presentations, rather than anything game related. So I decided to leave school and see what the real world was like.
About a week after I started looking for a job, one sort of fell in my lap. A local game company, Hypnotix, was looking for a 3d guy to help get their cinematics finished on one of their games. In the interview I
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remember telling my boss that I would work for free, as long as I get to work on games. That probably wasn’t too smart considering the salary they offered me was close to that! Its ok though, I think if I saw the work I showed them back then I wouldn’t hire me! I also made the mistake of wearing a suit to the interview. I got laughed at, a lot. But of course I
didn’t find that out until about 6 months after I started! Word to the wise,
DON’T WEAR A SUIT ON AN INTERVIEW! What did I know? I’m from Jersey! Everyone wears suits to job interviews around New York! Well I got the job, soaked up everything I possibly could. I got about 3 raises in the course of a year and got promoted to Lead Artist when I was about 22. The rest, as they say, is history! |
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3DTotal : And what made you take this career path?
Rich : Well, since Hypnotix had a fairly small team, I had the opportunity to work on just about every aspect of the game. It really was great being able to work on both environments and characters. It gave me the chance to understand all of the technical aspects that go into creating a game from every angle. Being on the east coast however, did limit my knowledge of how other game companies worked. So when I decided to move on from Hypnotix, I knew I had to choose which area of the game I wanted to focus on. I always enjoyed making environments but especially loved making characters. So when I started applying to other studios, I decided to apply as a character artist.
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3DTotal : What is it about character creation that makes the job so great?
Rich : That’s a hard question. There are so many great things about working on characters, especially if you get the chance to work on the main ones. For one, your character gets to be the centerpiece of the game, if the game permits. They do tend to get the most scrutiny however, but they also tend to have the greatest reward. I don’t think there is any greater feeling than when you hear, “Wow, that character is amazing.” In my opinion, working on characters has a huge advantage over environments. Because it's just one character, you can really focus all of your attention on one task, not having to worry about a gigantic area to populate. There is also a huge technical side to creating game characters, especially with next generation ones. That is one of the areas that I really love. I love figuring out new ways of achieving results and new and more efficient pipelines.
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