Take Initiative

Aaron Canaday works as an environment artist at Bioware Austin and he delivers a regular podcast from the site Games Industry Mentor. Like myself, Aaron seeks to provide information for those looking to get their foot in the door in the games industry, but also strives to be a tool for current industry professionals.

Wanting to share his story that bit further of how he landed his first role in the games industry, he talks with Take Initiative now so that others may learn from his experiences.

Take Initiative: What is your job title? How long have you been in your current role?

Aaron Canaday: I have been an Environment Artist at BioWare Austin for roughly 2 years now. It seems like just yesterday I was hired on. Time has been flying by!

TI: What made you want to pursue a career as an environment artist?

AC: When I was going to school at the Art Institute of California – San Diego (I received a BA in Game Art & Design), I was lucky enough to have faculty who were well informed of the competitive jobs vs the less competitive ones within the industry. We also had plenty of instructors who worked at local game studios and they were able to give some great perspective on this as well. It became clear to me very early on that environment art would be a much easier way to get my foot in the door as opposed to character art or concept art.

Although I do have friends who landed positions in character or concept art, I’m really glad that I made the decision I did. Not only are environment jobs more widely available, it’s a type of work I enjoy doing a lot. I tend to be a “people person” and environment art interfaces with many different jobs such as concept, design, vfx, and animation. It’s a really cool experience to see the ins and outs of other people’s job, as well being able to meet and become friends with such a wide range of people.

TI: How did you break into the role? How long did it take you to break in?

AC: I got my first break by landing an internship at a local company, High Moon Studios, who were working on The Bourne Conspiracy at the time. There was a really cool guy who worked with me on our school prototyping project, and he landed a full-time position there before he was finished with school. When the internship became available, he had a few people in mind to refer, luckily, I was one of those people. This is why I always tell people to treat your fellow classmates as future contacts. Become friendly with people, work hard, show your talent, and make sure you be as easy to work with as possible.

After my internship was up, High Moon informed me that they might be able to renew the internship as a contract position at the new year, but wouldn’t be able to offer me a regular full-time position due to budget constraints. I had promised myself that I would apply for outside positions regardless whether they were interested in keeping me on or not just to see what was available. To make good on that, I applied for an environment art role at Pandemic, as well as many other places. Someone at Pandemic asked if I would be interested in applying at BioWare Austin, as they were staffing up at the time, and he thought my art style suited that studio well. I eagerly agreed, and after an art test, they hired me on full-time.

I was lucky enough to land a regular full-time position within a couple months of finishing school, but my wife would be the first to remind people that I spent plenty of my free time trying to get my portfolio to a somewhat marketable level, so that helped my chances quite a bit I think. I can honestly say that between my internship, finishing up school, and working on my portfolio, that was by far the hardest I have ever worked and the least I have slept! If I hadn’t have spent that extra effort, I’m convinced I would have needed an extra 6 months or more after graduation to polish my portfolio and land a job, even considering the positive economic climate a couple years ago.

TI: Describe a typical working day?

AC: I usually come in around 9am. After some breakfast and email, I get started on the list of things that I need to work on. The common tasks include things like lighting and propping indoor areas, working on terrain and propping outdoor areas, giving feedback on outsourced assets, & bug fixes. Other types of work include any pre-production work that might be assigned to me for new regions in the game. This can include things like finding reference images, painting terrain textures, collaborating on what assets the area might use, building assets, things like that.

TI: What tools do you use regularly? Would you recommend aspirational developers to learn these tools?

AC: We currently are using Hero Engine, although I was originally trained on Unreal 2, and cut my teeth on Unreal 3. Overall I think aspiring developers should just learn any engine really. Many of the tools are similar, and as long as you can build a scene in one, you can at least know what you want to do in another. The best candidate in my opinion is Unreal, it’s very versatile, and a pretty robust toolset. Especially with the announcement of Epic’s UDK – that’s great news for anyone trying to put together some environments to show off.

TI: How important would you say it is to have some knowledge of editors such as UnrealEd or Hammer as opposed to 3D applications?

AC: I feel that both are essential. I know that not everyone feels this way. Granted knowing your way around Max or Maya and building cool junk will help you get your foot in the door, so that’s obviously important. But if you really want to stand out and help future proof your skills, you shouldn’t be learning just 3D applications. You should be working in game engines too.

TI: What new techniques/tools do you think would be essential for aspiring environment artists to learn for future roles?

AC: As previously mentioned, from an employer perspective game engine familiarity could likely go from “preferred” to “essential” in the next 5 years. Also, familiarity with outsourcing techniques, and being able to critique work clearly and effectively, both in person an on forums might end up being a big deal.

Another soapbox issue of mine is lighting. So often I will see decent assets, but they are lit really poorly. Or a scene put together with various props in Max or Maya that needs a lot of help lighting wise. I got some of the best advice from a professor of mine who said that if you are spending less time on lighting as you would on other tasks such as UVs, textures, or modeling, you are doing it wrong and being lazy.

TI: What advice would you give a beginner building a portfolio for an environment artist role? What would say is essential to include? What would you leave out?

AC: In all honesty, it varies depending on where you apply unfortunately, and there aren’t many “golden rules” when it comes to portfolios either. The only few things I have heard most people agree on, is: 1. avoid putting in too many pieces, and 2. only put in your best stuff. Everything else is going to be a calculated risk which might close doors at one place, and open them at another. In the end you should really just try to make the coolest looking stuff you can, show it to lots of professionals to get feedback on your work, and just when you think you’ve finally got something cool, scrap it, and make something cooler.

The other thing I harp on a lot is being careful about putting in your own drawings, especially when those drawings are used to produce an asset. Because most environment artists aren’t marketable as concept artists, your final product might suffer due to your less-than-impressive initial drawing. These flaws can carry over to your asset which you may regret this later. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t ever put your drawings in. Some people like being able to see that you have some illustrative talent and are creative. I prefer to see this separated out in life drawing or other well done sketchbook stuff.

TI: In your opinion, do you think university projects are good pieces to include in your portfolio?

AC: This is a tough one. It really depends on the project, and the quality of that project. A big red flag for including a project in your portfolio is how similar it might look to other student’s work. I’ve actually made this mistake. Sometimes school projects require you to build a scene that is very similar to every one else in class. If you are applying locally, and everyone else has this in their portfolio, it just looks bad. So be careful of that. If you are lucky enough to work on a student project that allows for more creativity, make sure you take advantage of that. Those types of projects have the best potential to show well if they are well done.

TI: As an environment artist how has overtime in the games industry affected you (not specific to your current company please)?

AC: It seems like crunching is becoming less of an issue in the games industry. I know there are plenty of companies that still crunch when needed, but it does not seem as prevalent as I thought it would be. I am guessing that as the games industry grows up, so are the people making these games. Many people are now married, and have kids of their own, which really changes someones perspective about working insane hours.

My best advice if you are trying to avoid working at a studio that crunches a lot, is to try and find the “family friendly” studios to work for. Talk to people who work at the studio in question and ask about how many people have kids, or if there is an annual “family picnic”. That kinda stuff. Conversely, if a studio is retaining a bachelor type culture, that might be a red flag. Again, there is no way to avoid crunching completely, and you may be unlucky and get stuck on a death march, but scoping out the culture of the studio might help your odds.

TI: Any other pieces of wisdom you want to impart?

AC: Work hard! If you are spending a large chunk of your time playing games and watching TV, you will probably have a hard time getting into the industry, especially within this economic climate. To put things into perspective – In my opinion, having a career that you are happy about and enjoy doing every day is such an amazing and priceless experience. It may sound crazy, but along with my wife and child, it’s something I feel grateful for every single day. Not only do I benefit from this happiness with my job, but so does my family. I know my wife and son appreciate that I come home as a happy dad, and not a grumpy and depressed dad who hates his job.

So the real question is: How hard are you willing to work for that? Because that is what you need to be thinking about when deciding whether or not to work on your portfolio.

Aaron has previously worked as an art intern for The Bourne Conspiracy and as an environment artist on Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Keep up-to-date with Aaron via his podcasts on Games Industry Mentor.

Reading: From Intern to Environment Artist: Interview with Aaron Canaday

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