Labyrrinth
06-01-2006, 11:37 AM
599Sigil Games Online Senior Artist, Christian “thor” Akesson (http://www.sigil.com/team/christianakesson.html), got his start in the game industry with Sony Online Entertainment as an environmental artist on the EverQuest II team. Not too many years later, Christian decided to move on, and luckily enough for all the Vanguard fans, in December 2002, Christian accepted the position he now holds at Sigil. Recently, we at Silky Venom had the good fortune to be able to put some questions to Christian. The resultant interview covers a wide variety of topics. In it you’ll discover how Christian got his start in art, what inspired him, what he’s working on now in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, the process game art goes through from conception all the way to production, and so very much more. It is truly an informative and enjoyable read.
Silky Venom: How did you become an artist?
Christian Akesson: Mainly by doing, generating a project idea, research, concepting and executing. Back in 1994 while studying general education classes in college, I chipped in for a computer with my roommate, Martin Karlsson (technical lead here at Sigil), and we bought Strata Studio Pro, a very basic 3D program. We would take turns and sit down and do our own projects. Most of the renderings and “art” results were quite atrocious :), but it was a great learning experience.
Silky Venom: Do you have any formal training?
Christian Akesson: After 2 years of general ed classes at Santa Monica Community college, I transferred to ETSU, East Tennessee State University. The Design Graphics program has a computer lab by the name of AVL, Advanced Visualization Lab. It was a lab filled with Silicon Graphics O2 boxes. The students ran the lab themselves and there was no restriction on how much time you spent there. You could not enter that Holy Grail of a room right away however, one had to complete a series of prep classes before diving into the 3D arena. First, Technical Illustration, Photoshop classes, Video Editing, Color Theory etc., etc., had to be completed.
When I made it into the AVL in 1999, I intensely worked with a 3D software called Maya, which is incidentally one of the main 3D software programs we use to develop Vanguard: Saga Of Heroes. The teaching strategy of the AVL program was learning by doing, which is a mindset I agree with, going through a step by step tutorial can only carry you so far. When you have a vision and have to take it all the way through, you learn a lot by overcoming the technical obstacles that you will encounter along the way in any 3D program.
Silky Venom: Who was your first inspiration? The first work that made you say, "wow, I want to do that.”
Christian Akesson: I would say that it was the digital revolution of the movie industry that pushed me into the field. When watching Jurassic Park for the first time, I was blown away. The fact that you can trick people into thinking that something digital is something real has always fascinated me.
Silky Venom: Where did you work before Sigil?
Christian Akesson: My first job out of school and also where I worked before joining Sigil, was at Sony Online Entertainment (Verant), where I joined the EverQuest II team as an environment artist.
Silky Venom: What made you want to work for a game company?
Christian Akesson: After graduation at ETSU, I went on a road trip from Tennessee to Los Angeles to go job hunting. Along the way, I visited Idol Minds, a game studio in Boulder, Colorado where a couple of alumni people of the AVL program were working. I was floored by how quick of a turnaround it was to take your art from Maya into game.
When I later interviewed at Verant and saw what level of visual sophistication was put into EverQuest II, I knew that this was the industry that I wanted to be in. To seal the deal, the gaming industry has more job security in that it is not as project based as the movie industry.
Lastly, I have never been able to drop many aspects of doing 3D to focus on one. I’ve always enjoyed multiple aspects of it such as modeling (both characters and environments), animation, lighting, texturing etc. I have been allowed to do it all in the gaming industry whereas it is more common to specialize in the film industry.
Silky Venom: An "artist" covers a wide area of expertise. What is it that you do for Sigil, exactly?
Christian Akesson: Since I started at Sigil back in December 2002, I’ve touched on pretty much all the aspects of the art department except for concepts. I’ve had the opportunity to do NPCs, PCs, terrain, texturing, lighting, architecture and objects. I’m having a blast and love the fact that I’ve been able to learn so much and do so many different things. Currently, I work mostly with terrain.
Silky Venom: How do artists interact in a team environment? For example, are there meetings to discuss design issues, do multiple artists work on the same art, do artists interact with the programmers and/or designers?
Christian Akesson: The artist is given a larger area such as a city, village or a dungeon. There is usually an initial meeting where design, concept and the artist is involved in a brainstorm and to discuss the needs of both the visual aspect and the design aspect of a place. There is also a scheduling meeting where you get pressured into saying that you can do that city in a week, and a few days later you go home crying :) - just kidding. Sometimes there may be another artist working on objects to populate the city, village or dungeon. We definitely interact with design to make sure that the area will play right. If we interact with programmers, it’s usually because something is broken :). Earlier on, we interacted more with programming to make sure things worked in an artist friendly way, when functionality was initially implemented, but we are past that stage now and production is rolling.
Silky Venom: What process does game art go through starting from conception all the way to production? Including design decisions, software used to create the art, how the game art is actually put into the game, and so on.
Christian Akesson: It all begins with a meeting where all involved parties vent what they have in mind, and then discussions take all the ideas into consideration. From there, a concept is created and given to the artist in charge of making the model. Not everything can be concepted as that would seriously overload our concept guys, but the artist can get an idea of the style for the concepts that he or she does get, and extrapolate other objects/buildings/dungeon rooms etc. out of that.
The building of the object will then commence and we use Autodesk Maya (formerly known as Alias Maya) as our main 3D software. There are a thousand ways to reach the end model in Maya and every artist has their way of approaching thing so it would be hard to discuss specific modeling techniques here.
The model is then UVd, which is the step when we assign texture coordinates and assign shaders to the model. To get the model across to our game engine, we have a plug in for Maya that exports it into our various mesh packages. We can then place buildings and objects in Maya and then write out command files to the editor so that it automatically places everything like we did in Maya or we can hand place objects in our game editor. We use both of these options depending on what we want to do. For example, it makes sense to just hand place a rock out on the terrain but it is easier to write out a command file when laying out a city since you have more controls of manipulating object placement in Maya.
Silky Venom: What has been your biggest challenge working on Vanguard, so far?
Christian Akesson: That’s a tough question, there have been quite a few challenges. I would have to say that the toughest challenges were in the early stages of the game, coming up with work flows and production techniques while at the same time meeting deadlines and getting functioning art into the game.
Silky Venom: Any advice for aspiring game artists?
Christian Akesson: Never give up, never surrender :). If you have that burning passion for what you want to do, don’t let up until it is fulfilled. It will probably be a lot of hard work and require tons of patience, but the reward is worth it. Stay current with development of new tools, as it is a very quick evolving business. A great example is Z Brush, a very intuitive sculpting tool that is mainly used to generate very detailed normal and displacement maps that are mapped onto lower resolution geometry but gives the appearance of extremely detailed models. It’s already widely used in gaming houses but a great example of an emerging tool that has changed production techniques, and probably given lots of students with Z Brush experience job offers :).
Silky Venom: From all of us, thank you Christian for your time, attention to detail, and allowing the community to get to know you and your work a little better. We truly do appreciate it.
Silky Venom: How did you become an artist?
Christian Akesson: Mainly by doing, generating a project idea, research, concepting and executing. Back in 1994 while studying general education classes in college, I chipped in for a computer with my roommate, Martin Karlsson (technical lead here at Sigil), and we bought Strata Studio Pro, a very basic 3D program. We would take turns and sit down and do our own projects. Most of the renderings and “art” results were quite atrocious :), but it was a great learning experience.
Silky Venom: Do you have any formal training?
Christian Akesson: After 2 years of general ed classes at Santa Monica Community college, I transferred to ETSU, East Tennessee State University. The Design Graphics program has a computer lab by the name of AVL, Advanced Visualization Lab. It was a lab filled with Silicon Graphics O2 boxes. The students ran the lab themselves and there was no restriction on how much time you spent there. You could not enter that Holy Grail of a room right away however, one had to complete a series of prep classes before diving into the 3D arena. First, Technical Illustration, Photoshop classes, Video Editing, Color Theory etc., etc., had to be completed.
When I made it into the AVL in 1999, I intensely worked with a 3D software called Maya, which is incidentally one of the main 3D software programs we use to develop Vanguard: Saga Of Heroes. The teaching strategy of the AVL program was learning by doing, which is a mindset I agree with, going through a step by step tutorial can only carry you so far. When you have a vision and have to take it all the way through, you learn a lot by overcoming the technical obstacles that you will encounter along the way in any 3D program.
Silky Venom: Who was your first inspiration? The first work that made you say, "wow, I want to do that.”
Christian Akesson: I would say that it was the digital revolution of the movie industry that pushed me into the field. When watching Jurassic Park for the first time, I was blown away. The fact that you can trick people into thinking that something digital is something real has always fascinated me.
Silky Venom: Where did you work before Sigil?
Christian Akesson: My first job out of school and also where I worked before joining Sigil, was at Sony Online Entertainment (Verant), where I joined the EverQuest II team as an environment artist.
Silky Venom: What made you want to work for a game company?
Christian Akesson: After graduation at ETSU, I went on a road trip from Tennessee to Los Angeles to go job hunting. Along the way, I visited Idol Minds, a game studio in Boulder, Colorado where a couple of alumni people of the AVL program were working. I was floored by how quick of a turnaround it was to take your art from Maya into game.
When I later interviewed at Verant and saw what level of visual sophistication was put into EverQuest II, I knew that this was the industry that I wanted to be in. To seal the deal, the gaming industry has more job security in that it is not as project based as the movie industry.
Lastly, I have never been able to drop many aspects of doing 3D to focus on one. I’ve always enjoyed multiple aspects of it such as modeling (both characters and environments), animation, lighting, texturing etc. I have been allowed to do it all in the gaming industry whereas it is more common to specialize in the film industry.
Silky Venom: An "artist" covers a wide area of expertise. What is it that you do for Sigil, exactly?
Christian Akesson: Since I started at Sigil back in December 2002, I’ve touched on pretty much all the aspects of the art department except for concepts. I’ve had the opportunity to do NPCs, PCs, terrain, texturing, lighting, architecture and objects. I’m having a blast and love the fact that I’ve been able to learn so much and do so many different things. Currently, I work mostly with terrain.
Silky Venom: How do artists interact in a team environment? For example, are there meetings to discuss design issues, do multiple artists work on the same art, do artists interact with the programmers and/or designers?
Christian Akesson: The artist is given a larger area such as a city, village or a dungeon. There is usually an initial meeting where design, concept and the artist is involved in a brainstorm and to discuss the needs of both the visual aspect and the design aspect of a place. There is also a scheduling meeting where you get pressured into saying that you can do that city in a week, and a few days later you go home crying :) - just kidding. Sometimes there may be another artist working on objects to populate the city, village or dungeon. We definitely interact with design to make sure that the area will play right. If we interact with programmers, it’s usually because something is broken :). Earlier on, we interacted more with programming to make sure things worked in an artist friendly way, when functionality was initially implemented, but we are past that stage now and production is rolling.
Silky Venom: What process does game art go through starting from conception all the way to production? Including design decisions, software used to create the art, how the game art is actually put into the game, and so on.
Christian Akesson: It all begins with a meeting where all involved parties vent what they have in mind, and then discussions take all the ideas into consideration. From there, a concept is created and given to the artist in charge of making the model. Not everything can be concepted as that would seriously overload our concept guys, but the artist can get an idea of the style for the concepts that he or she does get, and extrapolate other objects/buildings/dungeon rooms etc. out of that.
The building of the object will then commence and we use Autodesk Maya (formerly known as Alias Maya) as our main 3D software. There are a thousand ways to reach the end model in Maya and every artist has their way of approaching thing so it would be hard to discuss specific modeling techniques here.
The model is then UVd, which is the step when we assign texture coordinates and assign shaders to the model. To get the model across to our game engine, we have a plug in for Maya that exports it into our various mesh packages. We can then place buildings and objects in Maya and then write out command files to the editor so that it automatically places everything like we did in Maya or we can hand place objects in our game editor. We use both of these options depending on what we want to do. For example, it makes sense to just hand place a rock out on the terrain but it is easier to write out a command file when laying out a city since you have more controls of manipulating object placement in Maya.
Silky Venom: What has been your biggest challenge working on Vanguard, so far?
Christian Akesson: That’s a tough question, there have been quite a few challenges. I would have to say that the toughest challenges were in the early stages of the game, coming up with work flows and production techniques while at the same time meeting deadlines and getting functioning art into the game.
Silky Venom: Any advice for aspiring game artists?
Christian Akesson: Never give up, never surrender :). If you have that burning passion for what you want to do, don’t let up until it is fulfilled. It will probably be a lot of hard work and require tons of patience, but the reward is worth it. Stay current with development of new tools, as it is a very quick evolving business. A great example is Z Brush, a very intuitive sculpting tool that is mainly used to generate very detailed normal and displacement maps that are mapped onto lower resolution geometry but gives the appearance of extremely detailed models. It’s already widely used in gaming houses but a great example of an emerging tool that has changed production techniques, and probably given lots of students with Z Brush experience job offers :).
Silky Venom: From all of us, thank you Christian for your time, attention to detail, and allowing the community to get to know you and your work a little better. We truly do appreciate it.