| |
|
3DTotal : Hi, could you tell us a bit about yourself?
Raphael : Hello, my name is Raphael Lacoste, I was born in Paris in 1974, and I grew up spending two and a half years in South Algeria, after which I moved to Bordeaux, south-west of France. I'm now currently living in Canada with my wife and son working as an Art Director at Ubisoft's Cinematic Studio.
3DTotal : What first got you started in CG?
Raphael : I was always looking outside of the window when I was at school…I was the boy in the moon (and still am). I drew a lot during my courses and then finally went to the Fine Art School at Bordeaux where I studied Photography and Video in the “Art and Media” option. Fine Arts were very “Conceptual Art” oriented, and I couldn’t find my way in this very closed area – it was very tightly sealed, like the new temple for sophism. During my studies I worked for a theatre company as a Photographer, which also found me doing a few sound tracks for theirs shows whilst I was there. When they had the opportunity to work on “The Little Prince”, of St. Exupéry, they offered me the opportunity to do the pictures that would be projected onto a giant screen behind the stage! Working on this project was very exciting as I managed to do my first 3D pictures for this show. I used an Atari TT, which was my father's, with a script 3D software called Renderay - this is how I learned to be patient.
|
|
| |
|
3DTotal : Could you explain your role as Art Director and what this job entail?
Raphael : During preproduction, I have to define the cinematic look of the film. I like this period as it's very creative and I have time to focus on the concept-art. I do colour keys for each sequences; find references for modelling textures; I work with the matte painters to push the backgrounds to the best quality possible in the time that we have. I also work with the directors a lot, to find good framings and nice environments to help the action. During production, it’s different and more stressful, and I spend my day doing approvals and follow-ups. I find that I can’t sit still for more than 5 minutes! As we work with all separated elements, even for the matte paintings, we have to work a lot with the leads to respect as much as possible from the original direction. Actually, I'm the Art Director on Assassin’s Creed, a very ambitious next gen title. The project is really big so it’s a new huge challenge to bring the art to the next level on such a big game. We also have 2 nominations for this year’s VES Awards (2007); one for the E3 trailer and one for the game, so fingers crossed |
 |
 |
 |
 |
3DTotal : You work for Ubisoft, probably one of the biggest and well-known computer games companies around today. What's it like working for them and how does it compare to Kalisto?
Raphael : It's really different, also because it is a French/Canadian company. Here we get the best from Europe and the best from North America. I mean that we have a lot of talent, great concept artists and quite good management, when compared to my past experiences in Europe. It's more “realistic”, we are creating a lot of games that are released and which sell a lot. |
|
|
| |
It's not perfect, but I feel like I am not working for nothing. We also have some very interesting licenses to work on, like “Prince of Persia”, “King Kong”, “Far Cry” and “Assasin’s Creed".
|
|
|
 |
 |
3DTotal : And what was it like working on the two “Prince of Persia” games?
Raphael : I worked on three in fact! I was the Art Director on the first game of the series and also for the high-res cinematics on the second and third. I learned a lot from doing the “Sands of Time”; the game is great and we had a lot of big challenges artistically, as we had full interactivity with the environments: walling, rebounds, etc. You have to put details in all the right places, keeping a readable, plausible and beautiful environment. The production was difficult and we all learned from this experience, but I like to keep the very good memories. The good thing was that it sold really well and we had an IGDA Nomination for ‘Best Graphics and Art Direction’! |
|
|
| |
On the second one, it was yet another challenge, as we tried to keep the feel of the game and push the art to the next level in the cinematics. We hadn't worked with matte paintings at this time, as it was all fully 3D environments, and the rhythm was very good thanks to Felix-Etienne Rocque (Director) and Hugues Martel (Storyboard Artist). I had to find interesting moods and colour keys and did most of the environments of the cinematics! Even if I was not doing the Art Direction on the Game, I was quite free on the cinematics and enjoyed a lot working on this one. We won a 'Best Game Trailers' award for the “Warrior Within” cinematic trailer. |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
