State of the Art
ABOUT MIKE
Mike Rutter - Art Manager | FreeStyleGames | Activision
State Of The Art is chiefly written by my good self, Mike Rutter.
I’m the Art Manager here at FreeStyleGames, an Activision video games studio in Leamington Spa, England where amongst other things during my time here we have developed such high profile titles as DJ Hero, DJ Hero 2 & Guitar Hero DLC.
As you may have heard recently at E3, we are now working on a Nintendo Wii U game that’s been given the working title “SiNG” for the time being.
I’ve been in the Games Industry for about 15 years now, with 10 years at Codemasters before becoming a FreeStyler as Art Manager.
So more from me on FreeStyle, our Art Studio and some personal perspectives soon…
June 26, 2012
This entry was posted by Mike Rutter
Art Recruiting – Join FreeStyleGames
After a quiet period in art recruiting we have just released a number of great new art roles onto the careers page.
Industry Developments
Working in games, you sometimes find a lull between projects as Art ramps down on one project before the next is fully ramped up, but having just finished SiNG Party you’d be surprised to see just how hard we’ve been working on what comes next.
As always, there are changes afoot in the Games Industry, but particularly big ones this year as the release of the WiiU marks the first new console from the big three in about 7 years. Surely Microsoft and Sony won’t be too far behind Nintendo.
During this time, touchscreen devices, smartphones, iPads and web games have grown HUGE. With new free-to-play, freemium, episodic models and digital delivery – even by the Games Industry’s standards – things have been moving apace.
And it’s not just Games either of course– the digital VFX industry has made amazing advances on just about every front from animated feature films to photorealistic VFX which can be massively relevant to art teams like FreeStyle’s.
Heads Up
In this period between games, when you’ve had your heads down for a while, it’s time to look up, look around and see what’s been happening in the world and get ready for what you want to do next.
So from the latest asset capture pipelines, pre-rendered and post techniques, uncovering the full advances in DX11 real-time rendering all the way through to discovering how to author and push content for handheld devices…
It’s incredibly challenging to keep tabs on all of these areas and not just stay current, but aim for the cutting edge; you really have to work for it, but it is exciting.
And what we’re going to be doing next is exciting.
The positions that we’ve opened this week will by no means be the last in the coming months, but they are all firm growth areas for games.
Art Recruiting
UI Artists
UI Artists have always been essential in my eyes; with a massive impact on any game look and feel. This will always be the case for me and most studios are now finally coming round to this point of view.
But the demands on UI teams are set to grow massively in the future.
As we ourselves found working on the WiiU, the new touch-screen device can mean that you are designing any given screen 3 ways; Television, Device Portrait and Device Landscape.
The new touch-screen device can also mean that you need to design screens and content in places that didn’t exist before – like when gameplay is in full swing! With Microsoft pushing SmartGlass, it’s clear that this additional work will not just be confined to Nintendo games.
Online has been another huge growth area for console games in recent times. Titles like Call Of Duty and Black Ops as examples have such insane online modes and options that just wouldn’t have existed at the start of the last console cycle. All of these additional modes and content need to be designed and implemented to the highest standards and this can place a heavy workload on a UI team.
And so we need more UI Artists. We need exceptional UI Artists. And it’s about talent first and experience second; I’ve seen gifted graduates run design rings around a middling industry veteran.
The most successful UI Artists I’ve ever hired have usually had web, advertising or other creative industry experience to complement an enthusiasm for games.
Motion Graphics Artists
Even 5 years ago, a dedicated Motion Graphics Artist was a rarity and a luxury that few teams could support, but now they are an essential and growing part of many game studios.
These people bring early concepts and target renders to life, provide stunning moments and content within the games and then have an important final influence on the post effects and final treatments for your artwork.
The most successful Motion Graphics Artists I’ve ever hired tend to have had some previous experience in Television, Advertising and Film where fewer technical constraints have been in place and artists have had more creative freedom to learn their trade.
And so we need more Motion Graphics Artists. We need exceptional Motion Graphics Artists. And once again, it is very much talent first, experience second.
Technical Artists
The last of our new positions available, the Technical Artists are a breed unto themselves and some of the most important people in the whole development team sitting as they do, in that space between Art and Code.
It is extremely rare to find someone who has all of the knowledge, skills and expertise to be a great Tech Artist.
The best ones are gifted communicators with the skills and eye for detail of an artist but also the technical understanding and some of the coding skills of a graphics or tools programmer.
Sometimes they create tools and scripts, sometimes breaking down and improving processes, debugging work that doesn’t or creating cutting-edge shaders, but their essential remit is to aid and help realise the creative vision in game, which is never anything less than very very complicated.
In addition to the Games Industry, The VFX industry also has excellence in Technical Art, with more and more convergence between these industries there are good crossover opportunities. But (in both industries I suspect) prior experience is essential here.
Tally Ho.
So if you see yourself in any of the descriptions above and you’d like to see yourself working at FreeStyleGames then head on over to the careers page.
In addition to our new website, there is a new Activision back-end to this process called Taleo, so there maybe just a few Gremlins around.
If all else fails, use the contact page or DM me on Twitter.
November 15, 2012
This entry was posted by Mike Rutter
SUP
And a big FSG welcome to State Of The Art, thanks for coming.
I’m going to say a bit about managing a great art team in an awesome games company like FreeStyleGames working for the biggest games publisher on the planet.
I’ve got some ideas for things to write about that you’ll find interesting (you will, right?) but this is going to be a two-way thing – so if there is something that you want to ask me, the team, or you want to make requests for post topics then you can tweet me @mikejrutter, tweet FreeStyle @fsgstudio or use the comments thread. Simples. Continue…
“I’m the Art Manager for a videogame company called FreeStyleGames” is about my stock answer when people ask me what I do. It’s a cracking job to have; real fun, creative, interesting, thought-provoking, challenging… pretty fortunate really.
The games industry itself seems to be worth a bazillion pounds these days, but the reaction and follow up conversation I typically get to this make me think that – despite their cultural impact – most people still don’t know a huge amount about how these games are made, who makes them, how their role fits into the big picture or how many people it can sometimes take.
It’s a bit of a feature of the industry that each company does things in a slightly, or sometimes wildly, different way: The company next door could be working in a different game genre, using different software tools, targeting different platforms (consoles, facebook, handhelds etc.) and using different production strategies to get there.
Mostly though, it comes down to the people I think. Companies have their own way of doing things, their own culture, set by the people.
I can give you my view and thoughts from my personal FreeStyle vantage point, but it would also be great to hear from fellow industry folk with their view on things as we like our ways, but they are not the only ways.
So if you’d like a bit of personal insight, then stay with me, I look forward to hearing from you and hopefully we’ll have some fun.
Mike
June 26, 2012
This entry was posted by Mike Rutter
