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3DTotal: Hi, could you tell us a bit about yourself?
Jacques:
My name is Jacques Defontaine, I live in Belgium, a small place near Brussels. I’ve been working in the CG industry for about 11 years now, and I’m tootally self-taught as I actually studied computer analyst and foreign languages. I couldn’t finish them all, as I got an opportunity before I could and also because I easily get bored if I’m not passionate by what I’m doing.
3DTotal: What made you go down the 3D route?
Jacques:
I’ve always been interested in Arts. When I was a kid, I was drawing a lot, trying to reproduce famous people for friends at school. When I got my first computer, a friend showed me Lightwave and I was totally amazed. I bought it right away and knew it was what I’d do for the rest of my live. Around 6 months later, Casterman publishing was looking for artists for an ambitious game project, The Amerzone (by Benoit Sokal). It was my first experience and I’ll never forget how cool it was. |
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3DTotal: You became freelance in 2004, but what made you decide to do this, than work full time for just one company?
Jacques:
Freedom is probably the first reason. I also think, it’s because I like to be on my own… not having a boss standing behind me telling me what to do. It doesn’t mean I don’t like working with a team, but I guess the boss part doesn’t really fit with my temper! I also like the idea to work on different projects and being able to choose these projects. I couldn’t really do it at the beginning though. Another reason is that I hate traffic. It used to taking me 2 hours per day to go to work, that’s about a week per month that you spend in your car… craziness. There’re a lot of reasons and of course, there’re are also drawbacks. Another one is... If you happen to have some skills, you can make some good money, while working for a company, that’s usually the boss who gets that cash in his pockets
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3DTotal: Being freelance do
you aim to get a mixture of work or do you just aim for one specific area?
Jacques:
I enjoy working in different areas but I think my favourite would be working on Big movies. The problem is that, |
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Belgium is a small country and it’s quite rare and almost difficult to get opportunities like that. Things have start to change a bit now, but not fast enough for my taste. I’m also married and have a daughter so moving away is rather a tough choice. One of my dreams would be to work on movies such as LOTR, King Kong or full CG feature like Shrek or Final Fantasy… time will tell
3DTotal: Being a very good all-round 3D artist, is there one area that you think you need improvement on?
Jacques:
Thank you! I think everybody can do interesting stuff if you work hard enough and are passionate. There’re so many things I’m trying to improve everyday but some of them take longer than expected. my goal is simply… not to limit myself! | |
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I definitely enjoy organic modelling, texturing and lighting. I've also started animating a bit. That’s still going to take some time before something interesting comes up, but I really need to put some of my models in motion. I wish some day I’ll be able to make CG so realistic that nobody could tell the difference…especially human, in terms of look, motion and particularly expressions! That’s what is so cool in our job…you learn and improve almost everyday.
3DTotal: Would you like to work doing visual effects for film?
Jacques:
I've already worked on 2 French movies and I’m actually working on a third one which is called ‘Max & Co’… a ‘Corpse Bride’ type of movie. I guess things have started moving here in Europe, but not as fast as I’d like it to be.
3DTotal: If you could work on one game what would it be?
Jacques: There are lots of them, but my favourite type is definitely Half Life. |
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