Rhys Shepherd

– Technical Artist at Epic Games
– this is the perfect course for becoming a tech artist
– QA testing is a great way to get into the industry
– Jira is used in industry
– industry experience is important to get new roles and figuring out your career path
– networking
– large studio vs small studio
– new jobs introduce you to new skills and maybe new passions
– cross-platform development
– Unreal engine – used more in AAA studios, will give you resources to learn new engine
INTERVIEWS
– “What’s the most important aspect of designing a game”
– “Give me an example of a hard problem you had to solve and how you overcame it”
– “How would you do this differently”
– If you get stuck on a task, what’s the next step you would take?”
– Technical tasks: Finish the code, Create some UI, Fix this bug etc.
WHAT IS TECH ART
– bridge the gap between artist and programmer in the games industry
– different roles in tech art:
– 2D Tech artist
– importing and setting up textures
– optimising 2d assets
– adjusting 2d assets in photoshop
– setting up texture and sprite atlases
– effects artist
– designing particle systems
– developing environmental effects
– optimising effects for the performance
– technical animator
– building skeletal rigs and control systems
– skinning models for proper deformation
– importing animations into the engine
– environment tech artist
– setting up scene lighting and FX
– using procedural tools to generate assets
– importing environment assets
– audio tech artist
– implementing audio systems and soundscapes
– working with audio middleware
– ensuring audio quality and performance
– UI tech artist
– scripting UI mechanics and interactions
– importing UI assets and ensuring they optimised
– setting up UI assets such as prefabs
– Performance and optimisation
– profiling game performance to identify bottlenecks
– implementing optimisations techniques
– adapting assets for different platforms
– tools programmer
– automating repetitive tasks through scripting
– integrating software and plugins into the pipeline
– developing art tools
– shader programmer
– writing and optimising shaders
– setting up material
– graphics programmer
– developing custom render pipelines
– computer shaders
– shader and rendering optimisation
– working in the game engine
– if you are an aspiring tech artist:
– specialise in you favourite aspect
– prepare to take on different challenges everyday
– keep up with new tech, always learn
– work on personal projects that demonstrate technical/artistic skills