This weeks talk is from Rhys Shepard, who works as a technical artist at Epic Games. Previously, he studied on the Games Design and Art course, and at Mediatonic before it was bought by Epic.
Rhys started in the industry as a QA tester for Global Step, and he briefly worked at Peter Molyneux’s 22cans studio.
Networking
Rhys also gave some advice for networking; don’t be afraid to message people on places like LinkedIn. This is something I have started to do more recently, and it is something I will do when I see an opportunity to do so.
Interviews
Rhys said there were 3 important questions in an interview, “What is the most important aspect of making a game?”, “What hard problem have you had and how did you solve it?” and “How would you do this differently?”
Technical Artist
Rhys described the Technical Artist role as a mix between art and tech, and he described the various things technical artists do as a scale between the art and the tech sides. For example, closest to the art side is a 2D tech artists who works with 2D textures, then theres effects artists, technical animator, environment tech artist, UI tech artist, and then closer to the tech side, tools programming and shader programming.
Software
Rhys suggested some software titles to learn, like Slack, GitHub, Visual Studio, Unity, Unreal, Photoshop, Maya, Houdini and Substance Painter/Designer. As for what I know in this list, I have some experience using Slack, GitHub, Visual Studio and Unity. I also have some experience in Unreal, but less than in Unity. I would like to learn Unreal again eventually, and also learn the VFX programs like Houdini and Substance Painter/Designer.
Q&A
I asked Rhys about any advice for messaging studios and people from studios, and he suggested to ask if there were any programming jobs available or for referrals to other people or CV advice.