Guest Speaker – Rhys Shepherd – Xane El Deen Rashad

Technical artist at Epic Games (may or may not be at fortnite).

Background

Graduated in 2018. Didn’t even know what a technical artist was while at university. Our course is perfect for technical art. The final year project was called Hacker Ball. Continued working on it after university. We should feel passionate about our final year project. Brought it to all his interviews, talked about everything he did on it and why. Very important aspect of the portfolio.

Jobs

First job was a QA tester at Global Step. It was a part-time job he had at the University. QA testing gives good experience in the industry. Got him used to using industry software, specifically Jira (bug tracking tool).

First real job was at 22 CANS. It took him several months to get it. He was a junior programmer. Worked with Peter Molyneux. Rhys was a self-taught programmer and his first job was very challenging as a result. He took the job anyway. He left after 3 months (because it was a very challenging role). But he learned a lot there and added it to the CV which was very useful. Worked on the game “Legacy” (unfortunately came out as an NFT game).

Next job was as an artist & designer at ERASE ALL KITTENS. It was a small studio, and the team consisted of 3 people. Got the job by applying to be a senior JavaScript developer role, but instead got a job he was much more suited for as an artist and designer. (APPLY FOR EVERYTHING). Studio unfortunately ran out of funding, and Rhys had to find another job. Afterwards focused on getting better at C# and took a course on it. Always prepare for your next role.

Next job was a junior technical artist at MEDIATONIC. Much larger studio with over 300 people. Worked across multiple teams and used much more software. Did UI and a bit of tooling – extending functionality of the game engine to help artists’ workflow. You should ask questions as a junior—get help when you need it. The game was cancelled, which was disheartening, but it happens in the industry. MEDIATONIC was bought by EPIC GAMES.

At EPIC GAMES he became a technical artist. Works on tooling on a live service AAA game. Building core skills. Works on cross-platform development. Does shaders, optimisation, and lighting. He was working mostly on Fall Guys but is now working on Fortnite. Was used to Unity but is now working on Unreal Engine 5.

Software used:

Slack
Jira
Perforce
GitHub
Visual Studio
VS Code
Unity
Unreal
Photo Shop
Maya
Houdini
Substance Painter

Interviews

Questions you might get on an interview:
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 is the next step you would take?
Technical artist tasks: Finishing code, creating UI, fixing bugs, etc.
At MEDIATONIC, they wanted him to create UI for a small tank game. Had a week to do it.

Technical Art

2D Technical Artist Role:

Importing and setting up textures
Optimizing 2D assets
Adjusting 2D assets in photoshop
Setting up textures

Effect Artist:

Designing particle systems

Technical Animator:

Building skeletal rigs

Environment Technical Artist

Setting up scene lighting & FX
Using procedural tools
Importing assets

UI Technical Artist

Scripting UI mechanics and interactions
Importing assets and optimising them
Setting up UI assets like prefabs.

Performance & Optimisation

Profiling game performances to identify bottlenecks
Implementation optimisation techniques (LODs)
Adapting assets for different platforms.

Tools Programmer

Automating repetitive tasks through scripting
Integrating software and plugins into the pipeline

Shader Programmer

Writing and optimising shaders (HLSL, Shader graph, UE Materials)
Very different from C# & gameplay programming.
Unity & Unreal use their own in built shader tools, so programming isn’t as important as it used to be.

Graphics Programmer

Developing custom render pipelines
Computing shaders
Optimisation
Game Engine work

Advice for Technical Artists:

Focus on what you like best in technical art.
Prepare for different challenges each day.
Constantly be learning and keeping up with new tools and technology.
Work on personal projects that demonstrate your technical & artistic skills.

Questions & Answers:

Q: For being a technical artist, is it more important to be skilled in coding or to have an understanding of the game engine?
A: Being competent with the engine is generally more important. Some tech art roles don’t even do any programming. Being familiar with any engine is good because it can make it easier to understand other game engines and work more efficiently. You can pick up programming while you’re working if you want. It is not strictly necessary to be a tech artist; engine work is much more necessary.

Q: How different is working on 2D games versus 3D games as a technical artist?
A: It is pretty different; there’s a lot more you have to learn for 3D with regard to topology, shading, etc. A lot carries over, but you definitely need to learn more about 3D and have an understanding of 3D modelling in order to be able to competently be a 3D tech artist. Just be prepared for it before you start the position, research, practice, etc.

Q: You mentioned that being a QA tester helped you break into the industry. How many of the jobs you got were due to networking versus just applying to random studios?
A: The QA job was just hiring uni students, and the first job was gained from messaging people on LinkedIn. All the rest were from just applying; however, having job experience and knowing people has resulted in some unlisted job offers. Having industry experience is the strongest thing you can have on your CV.